Jerusalem and the Holy Land(fill)

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Excavations on Jerusalem’s Southeastern Hill—just outside the “City of David”—have exposed a landfill from the Early Roman period (first century B.C.E. to first century C.E.). This garbage provides insight into residents’ daily lives and habits during a politically, socially, and religiously tumultuous chapter of Jerusalem’s history—when Rome ruled, the Temple stood, and Jesus preached.

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Endnotes

1.
William Rathje and Cullen Murphy, Rubbish! The Archaeology of Garbage (Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona Press, 2001), p. 4.

2.
Josephus, Jewish War 5.151.

3.
Ronny Reich, Excavating the City of David: Where Jerusalem’s History Began (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 2011).

4.
Conrad Schick, “Namenliste und Erläuterungen zu Baurath Dr. C. Schick’s Karte der weiteren Umgebung von Jerusalem” (“List of names and explanations for Baurath Dr. C. Schick’s map of the wider area”), Zeitschrift des deutschen Palaestina-Vereins 19.3 (Leipzig: K Baedeker, 1896); Raymond Weill, La Cité de David (Paris: P. Geuthner, 1921).

5.
This view is still maintained by Alon de-Groot. See “Discussion and Conclusions” in Alon de-Groot and Hannah Bernick-Greenberg, eds., Excavations at the City of David 1978–1985 directed by Yigal Shiloh VIIA. Area E, Stratigraphy and Architecture: Text (Jerusalem: Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2012), pp. 141–184. For a different interpretation, see Guy Bar-Oz, et al., “Holy Garbage’: A Quantitative Study of the City-Dump of Early Roman Jerusalem,” in Levant 39 (2007), pp. 1–12.

6.
M. Baba Batra 2:1, 9; T. Bavli Shabbat 67b; cf. Deuteronomy 23:13–15.