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Abstract
The archaeological excavations at the Ophel site between 2009–2013, headed by Dr. Eilat Mazar, uncovered, for the first time in the history of Jerusalem, layers with buildings—some of them monumental—that were in use throughout the Iron I, Iron IIA and Early Iron IIB. These buildings are of great importance due to their location on the southern slopes of the Temple Mount. In this article I review these buildings, the relation between them, their date and their function. I then attempt to reconstruct a picture of Jerusalem and Judah in these formative periods.
Acknowledgements
This article is based upon the author’s PhD dissertation (Winderbaum Citation2021), submitted to Tel Aviv University. I would like to take this opportunity to thank my supervisor, Prof. Yuval Gadot, and the head of the Ophel’s excavations, the late Dr. Eilat Mazar. Special thanks are also due to Prof. Israel Finkelstein, who gave me the crucial initial push in my research, and the Minerva Stiftung Fellowship Programme, for their generous support.
Notes
1 There are only few mentions of this name in the Bible (Neh 3:26–27, 11:21; 2 Chron 27:3, 33:14), although it is unclear where the biblical Ophel is situated, and these sources are open to a wide range of interpretations. Warren based his identification of the site on Josephus (Wars V, 4:2), stating that the ‘Ophlas’ is ‘joined to the eastern cloister of the Temple’. This is the primary source for locating the Ophel in its current location, although it considerably post-dates the periods in question here. I follow this terminology, despite the difficulties in its identification, as it has become the most common term for this area in the modern urban geography of Jerusalem.
2 The research history of the Ophel was first presented by Eilat Mazar (Citation2011). Her popular and very readable book is also quite comprehensive. Her account ends after the 2009 season—the first season of the renewed excavations in the Ophel. She later presented an overview of the early Iron Age, relying upon the earlier research history (the 2009 season) and continuing to the end of the 2013 season (Mazar Citation2015). The summary presented here is based upon Mazar’s research, but includes a few notes of my own.
3 In my opinion, Kenyon’s dating of the ‘Extra Tower’ (to the Late Iron IIB) should be maintained, contrary to Prag, as this tower clearly abuts Wall FF and hence post-dates it.
4 It should be noted that E. Mazar disagreed with this interpretation and believed that these were merely fills beneath the ‘Gatehouse’. She has suggested identifying the Millo with the Stepped Stone Structure (Mazar Citation2011: 40).
5 The identification of the building as a gatehouse has not been accepted by all scholars (see Mazar Citation2011: 87–88; Sharon and Zarzecki-Peleg Citation2006: 158–159).
6 The excavations were supported by Daniel Mintz and Meredith Berkman and by the H.W. Armstrong International Cultural Foundation.
7 The ceramic assemblages and the suggested sub-phasing of the Early Iron IIA and the Iron IIB were presented in my PhD dissertation (Winderbaum Citation2021) and will also appear in the final report of Mazar’s excavations.
8 The assemblages of the early parts of the Early Iron IIA are not only below the assemblages of the later parts of the Early Iron IIA, but they also differ in their characterisation. For instance, in the earlier period the most common bowl is BL14a, rather than the later BL14c. Another hint is the use in the earlier period of CP3a, the predecessor of CP3b, which appears only in the later part of the Early Iron IIA.
9 This runs counter to E. Mazar’s initial suggestion that Phase 0 is the first phase of Building II (2015: 468–469). The main problem that arises from Mazar’s initial suggestion is that the latest pottery found within the foundation trench of W12-143, the wall delineating the southwestern side of Building II, dates to the Late Iron IIA. This is strong evidence for the construction of Building II in the Late Iron IIA.
10 One grape/raisin was sent to the Oxford laboratories, two samples were sent to the laboratories of the University of Groningen, and many others were sent to the laboratories of the Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot. They will be published by Prof. Elisabetta Boaretto in the next volume of the Ophel’s final publications.
11 A later inspection showed that the fill abutting the southern wall of the ‘casemate wall’ could in fact be earlier—perhaps Iron IB.
12 Some pottery sherds associated with Area H/1 published by Franken do seem to date to the Early Iron Age IIA (Franken Citation2005: 55–60). However, it is still difficult to determine the quality of the loci these sherds came from and their relation to the wall.
13 Mazar (Citation2011: 69–70) suggested dating the foundation of this structure to the 10th–9th centuries BCE, based mainly on the presence of Early Iron IIA material (including a complete black juglet) within the light brown fill, but without noting the late ceramic types that constitute the bulk of the pottery of this fill. This runs counter to her original dating of the foundation of this structure to the 9th–early 8th centuries BCE (Mazar and Mazar Citation1989: 60).
14 W09-017; termed W2302 in the old Ophel excavations and Wall FF in Kenyon’s excavations.
15 That said, it should be noted that this dating relies upon nine indicative sherds only (although they all point to the suggested dating), providing a terminus post quem.
16 Interestingly, the seam between Wall IV and Building II seems quite neat when looking from the sides, but not when looking from above. This might suggest that the option in which Wall IV was cut by Building II is more likely, hence supporting an earlier date for Wall IV.
17 For a comprehensive overview of the research history of the subject, see Faust Citation2006. Shahack-Gross and Finkelstein (Citation2008; Citation2015) have shown, through phytolith analyses, that these enclosures were inhabited by desert-adapted pastoralists, rather than garrisoned soldiers.
18 A later date than the date suggested here was reached through 14C (Boaretto, Finkelstein and Shahack-Gross Citation2010). See online supplement for a critique of this dating.
19 The possibility that the Large Stone Structure and the Stepped Stone Structure might have been built together in the Iron I was first raised by Cahill and A. Mazar (e.g., Cahill Citation2004: 25; Mazar Citation2006b: 269–270) and was accepted by others (e.g., Faust Citation2010). While much of the criticism by Finkelstein et al. (Citation2007) was addressed by E. Mazar (Citation2009) and Faust (Citation2010), Finkelstein (Citation2011) continues to maintain that the Large Stone Structure is not a single building, that it cannot be dated to the Early Iron IIA or earlier and that it is not connected with the Stepped Stone Structure. While I concur that some of the walls of the Large Stone Structure should be reexamined, I tend to accept that W20 connects the Large Stone Structure and the Stepped Stone Structure. The material associated with the Stepped Stone Structure, as published by Cahill (Citation2003: Fig. 1.8a,1.9a and 1.10a), is a clear Iron I assemblage, as is the material that abuts W20 from the west—the side of the Large Stone Structure (Mazar Citation2009: 59).
20 While positivists might also mention Kenyon’s casemate wall in Area H/1 (Steiner Citation2001: 48; see discussion above), it is true that once one does not consider the Large Stone Complex, there are no impressive structures in Jerusalem in the Early Iron IIA (with the exception of the new finds from the Ophel). Most of the finds from this period come from residential contexts—see Shiloh’s excavations in Area G (Cahill Citation2003), Area E (De Groot and Bernick-Greenberg 2012a:
34 , 101–106, 152), and Areas B and D1 (De Groot and Ariel Citation2000: 4–7, 39–42). Unfortunately, most of the finds from Kenyon’s excavations do not distinguish between the Early and Late Iron IIA and, consequently, are less useful.
21 A few later loci caused some intrusions to enter the massive fills; however, these intrusions might be considered contained as we knew their sources in advance. Of several thousands of indicative sherds that belong to these massive fills, only four small sherds are suspected of being uncontained intrusions. Even if we put aside the facts that they are only suspected of being intrusions and that they are statistically negligible, their size alone promotes the notion that they arrived at their position through post-residual processes. Consequently, the possibility that these sherds date the massive fills is, in my opinion, highly unlikely.
22 It has recently been suggested that one type of pithos (the neckless pithos) found in these fills appears only in the Late Iron IIA (Kleiman Citation2021). This suggestion is unfounded, in my opinion, and will be discussed elsewhere.
23 I would like to thank Prof. David Ben-Shlomo, who conducted an extensive petrographic survey on the pottery of the Ophel and other sites in Jerusalem (Ben-Shlomo Citation2019).
24 I consider as a ‘chiefdom’ any polity that controls the surrounding geographical environs—in the case of Jerusalem, all the Judaean Hills and perhaps a few cities or villages on its periphery. A ‘kingdom’ is any polity that also includes several geographical units around it—in the case of Jerusalem, this would include the Shephelah and the Negev. Of course, kingdoms also have a government and might also control other nations, while the chiefdom controls only the original nation, and has only a rudimentary, chief-focused ‘government’ (Joffe Citation2002). That said, one may still see bureaucracy within a chiefdom (Jerusalem as an example; see Keel Citation2015) and tribal hierarchy in a ‘kingdom’ (Maeir and Shai Citation2016). In my opinion, the lack of standardisation in Judah of the Early Iron IIA is also an indicator that there is no centralised government and hence no kingdom.
25 Late Iron IIA remains were uncovered across the City of David, including: (1) around the Gihon Spring, in Kenyon’s Square XXII (Franken and Steiner Citation1990: 10–27) and Cave II (Eshel Citation1995; LaGro and Noordhuizen Citation1995; Prag Citation1995: 216–218), Shiloh’s Area J (Shiloh Citation1984: Table 2; no final publication), Areas C and H (Uziel and Szanton Citation2015; Cohen-Weinberger, Szanton and Uziel Citation2017), the Rock-Cut ‘Pool’ (Reich, Shukron and Lernau Citation2007; Reich and Shukron Citation2009; De Groot and Fadida Citation2011), and the tower that guarded the spring (Regev et al. Citation2017; cf. Reich Citation2018); (2) in Shiloh’s Area E in the center of the slope (De Groot and Bernick-Greenberg 2012a: 33–34, 100–101); (3) in Shiloh’s Area G (Cahill Citation2003: 57–58) and the Large Stone Structure that was fixed, supported, or possibly extended (Mazar Citation2009: 51–54; cf. Finkelstein Citation2011: 8); and (4) in the Tyropoeon Valley, in the Giv>ati Parking Lot (Ben-Ami Citation2013: 8–9).
26 The lack of a city wall in the Tyropoeon Valley led Ben-Ami to believe that the city of the Iron IIA was unfortified (Ben-Ami Citation2014).
27 The quick return to homes after the Late Iron IIA is also evident in Building 2482 in the Gihon. In this case, however, the excavators did not mention any destruction layer between the Late Iron IIA and the Early Iron IIB.
28 Dan-Goor Citation2022 was published after completion of this article.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Ariel Winderbaum
Ariel Winderbaum: The Institute of Archaeology, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem