Image Details

SHALOM KWELLER, CITY OF DAVID

HIGH SOCIETY. The architecture and furnishings of the public building excavated at the Givati Parking Lot suggest it was a magnificent residence and reception hall, serving various administrative and ceremonial purposes. The Hebrew Bible calls such buildings “chambers.” Unique in Jerusalem’s landscape, Building 100 may have been a chamber used by a senior official or priest in service of the Kingdom of Judah—someone like Nethanmelek, whose seal impression has been found in the building and who may be the same official mentioned in 2 Kings 23. This artistic reconstruction of a room from Building 100’s second story imagines how guests were served fine meals and drinks and offered repose on ivory-decorated furniture.