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KOBY HARATI, COURTESY OF THE CITY OF DAVID ARCHIVE

FORTIFYING JERUSALEM. On the eastern slope of the City of David, archaeologists identified a large section of the Iron Age city wall. Radiocarbon and stratigraphic analyses date this fortification securely to the late eighth century, possibly several decades before the Assyrian attack of 701 BCE. It was then King Uzziah, not Hezekiah, who first encircled Jerusalem’s eastern and western hills to protect the city. During Sennacherib’s siege, Jerusalem was already fortified, which no doubt emboldened King Hezekiah to rebel against the Assyrian Empire.