Report from Jerusalem

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What the stock market is to Wall Street and government to Washington, archaeology is to Jerusalem.

It is full of archaeological talk and archaeological gossip, of new finds and ideas and speculations.

In 1843 the first U.S. Patent Commissioner, Henry Ellsworth, declared that “the advancement of the arts from year to year taxes our credulity and seems to presage the arrival of that period when human improvement must end”. Impressed with the burst of technology in those years, he could not believe that there was much left to invent and patent. Uninitiated readers of the history of excavations in Jerusalem—the most excavated site in the world—might suppose that it has all been dug, that there’s nothing left—especially after the Kenyon excavations between 1961 and 1967 and the Mazar and Avigad excavations from 1968 and continuing.

But of course BAR readers know it isn’t true and probably never will be. No doubt, like the pace of inventions registered with the U.S. Patent Office, the pace of excavations in Jerusalem, to say nothing of the remainder of Israel and the ancient Near East, will continue to quicken.

Most recently, BAR Editorial Advisory Board member Magen Broshi (who also serves as Curator of the Israel Museum’s Shrine of the Book which houses the Dead Sea Scrolls) has been changing the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem.

In places Broshi has more than doubled the height of the walls and increased their age by a factor of five.

014He has done this simply by excavating to bedrock a large area of the Old City’s western wall^a south of Jaffa Gate (No. 1 on the map). Beneath what had been ground level, Broshi found a jumbled string of older walls and towers.

The present wall of the Old City was built by the Ottoman Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent between 1538 and 1541.

Broshi’s excavation has revealed that Suleiman built his wall on top of an earlier wall which Broshi dates to the Hasmonean era (167 B.C.–37 B.C.), the dynasty that began with the Maccabees. After the Hasmoneans, King Herod (37 B.C.–4 B.C.), the greatest builder of them all, strengthened the 16 feet thick Hasmonean wall by adding courses of Herodian masonry to the outside of the Hasmonean wall. The wall in Herod’s time thus became 24 feet thick. Even Suleiman did not attempt to match the strength of these earlier walls; Suleiman simply used the earlier Hasmonean wall as the base for his own wall. Suleiman’s wall was the only wall to be seen above ground until Broshi’s excavations. When Broshi excavated to bedrock he found that the Hasmoneans and King Herod used this same line for the western wall of the city.

Elsewhere along the western wall, the picture is not so clear. There are sections of newly-discovered ancient walls that Broshi is not yet able to date. Some doubt he will ever be able to date them to the satisfaction of other scholars.

In addition to earlier walls, Broshi has also found the remains of earlier turrets—constructed perhaps by Hasmonean kings, by Herod, by Byzantine Christians, by the Arabs, or by the Crusaders.

Especially intriguing is the discovery of part of a ramp parallel to the city wall south of Jaffa Gate. Broshi has not yet dated the ramp. One speculation is that it was built by the Romans to gain entry to the city during the siege of 70 A.D., a siege which ultimately succeeded: the Romans burnt the city and destroyed the Holy Temple. (See illus.)

The southern wall of Jerusalem’s Old City, like the western wall, has also changed dramatically in the last two years. The discoveries, like the stratification levels, have cascaded over one another in almost dizzying succession.

Broshi and another archaeologist named Yoram Tsafrir have excavated adjacent to Zion Gate. (No. 2 on the map). There they located remains of an earlier gate tower and wall which enabled them to reconstruct this previous gate. They date the earlier construction to the Middle Ages—no later than 985 A.D. This was the very wall and gate tower from which the Arab rulers of Jerusalem unsuccessfully defended Jerusalem against the Crusaders in 1099. The Crusaders attacked from Mount Zion. Joshua Prawer has described the event:^b

“On 15 July 1099, after a five-week siege, the crusaders captured Jerusalem from its Egyptian garrison. In the ensuing three-day slaughter of the Moslem and Jewish defenders, some twenty or thirty thousand inhabitants perished. 015Thanksgiving prayers were celebrated in a silent Jerusalem, reeking with the stench of decaying corpses and amidst burned mosques, synagogues and houses.”

The Crusaders then had their turn at defense when the Moslems camped on Mount Zion and attacked the Crusaders: In 1187, Jerusalem was re-taken by Saladin, ending the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem.

After recapturing the city Saladin reconstructed Jerusalem’s fortifications. This reconstruction work was continued by his nephew Muazzam Issa who ruled in the early 13th century. In 1219, fearful of an imminent Crusader invasion (subsequent Crusades did recapture Jerusalem in 1229 and again in 1243), Muazzam Issa decided to demolish the walls of Jerusalem to prevent the Crusaders from ever again establishing a viable stronghold. Jerusalem remained unwalled for more than 400 years—until the present walls were built by Suleiman the Magnificent between 1538 and 1541.

About 400 feet east of Zion Gate, Broshi found beneath the present southern wall part of a wall and gate tower which had been built by Muazzam Issa as part of his reconstruction of Jerusalem’s fortifications—prior to his destruction of the walls. Broshi dates this wall and gate tower to the year 1212. Broshi can give us so exact a date because, amid the thoroughly destroyed gate and tower, he found a monumental dated inscription that had originally been installed above the gate. The inscription has not yet been published. However, it is written in Arabic, measures about nine feet long and relates that the tower was built in 609 A.H. [after the Hegira, or 1212 A.D.] by el-Malek el Muazzam [Muazzam Issa], the Ayyubid sultan of Damascus who fortified Jerusalem. The inscription was found broken into three pieces, chiseled in relief, beautifully preserved, with the red color of the background still vivid, although exposed to the elements for seven years, between 1212 when Muazzam constructed it and 1219 when he destroyed it. The excavators found the inscription lying with other architectural members of the destroyed gate—jambs, cornices, and voussoirs. Israelis take quiet pride that their excavations—condemned by UNESCO—have uncovered this moving evidence of a glorious Arabic past in Jerusalem.

Further to the east on the southern wall and continuing to Dung Gate (No. 3 on the map), Meir Ben-Dov has cleared a massive area and revealed elements of Jewish Jerusalem of the time of the Second Temple, Byzantine Christian Jerusalem and Crusader Jerusalem. The excavation, which has now been completed, has been restored and turned into an archaeological park. It is dramatically lit at night and is one of the sights 016to see in Jerusalem after the sun goes down—the honey colored stones of Jerusalem set against a darkened sky.

Ben-Dov has not yet dated the earliest remains in this area. He has found several cave tombs from which all the contents had been removed in antiquity, presumably when at a later date they were plastered to form water-proof cisterns. These tombs closely resemble similar tombs which were found by Professor Benjamin Mazar in his excavations adjacent to the Temple Mount (No. 6 on the map). Professor Mazar dates his tombs to the First Temple Period (8th–7th century B.C.). If this dating is correct, Ben-Dov’s tombs probably date from the same period.

During the Herodian Period (37 B.C.–70 A.D.) the area was an extension of the wealthy residential district already found inside the Old City, in the area known as the Jewish Quarter (see “How The Wealthy Lived in Herodian Jerusalem,” BAR 02:04). The same palatial residences which Professor Nachman Avigad found inside the present Old City wall Ben-Dov has found outside the wall, an area which during Herodian times was enclosed within the city walls.

Some of these houses also included a mikveh or ritual bath. Ben-Dov has found ten of them in this area, beautifully cut out of the bedrock. Each has six steps leading to the bath, which is connected to an adjacent tub known as the otzar or reserve. According to Jewish law, the water in a mikveh must come from a “flowing” source, rather than a “drawn” source. A “flowing” source would include rainwater, melted snow or a fresh flowing stream. Moreover, as long as a certain amount of “flowing” water is included in the bath—various interpretations require between 250 and 1000 liters of “flowing” water—additional water may be added without contaminating the bath, even though the additional water is not “flowing” water. This legal situation made possible mikveh designs which could provide enough ritually acceptable bathing water even during times 021of drought or seasonal shortage: The impure “drawn” water from the otzar or reserve could be added without contaminating the entire bath—so long as the main bath contained the minimum amount of ritually pure “flowing” water.

Especially palatial mikvaot (the plural of mikveh) have two sets of stairs divided by a low wall or pillars. Presumably one set of steps was used to enter (while the bather was in an impure state); the other set of steps was used to leave the purifying bath, uncontaminated by any contact with the impurities of the entrance steps.

Many of the floors of the houses were apparently paved with mosaics. Unfortunately, few of these mosaics remain. Just two days before I saw these excavations, however, Area Supervisor Gershom Edelstein uncovered what is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful and best preserved mosaics ever exposed in Jerusalem. Edelstein thinks it probably dates from the Herodian period (see color illustration).

The Herodian Period ends archaeologically with a layer of ash. In places it is 8 inches thick. Buried in this ash was found a hoard of 40 shekels from the First Jewish Revolt (66 A.D.–70 A.D.), a revolt which ended in Jerusalem’s destruction. A workman stole the coin hoard but he was subsequently apprehended, tried, and sentenced to nine 022months in prison; unfortunately, only 10 of the 40 coins he stole have been recovered. All 10 date to the second year of the revolt (67/68 A.D.).

After the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D., the city lost its former glory. Those who remained in the city lived amid the ruins. It is not surprising that little archaeological evidence of this period has been found. Then in 130 A.D. the Emperor Hadrian visited the destroyed city and decided to build a Roman colony on the ruins of the Jewish city. (This was no doubt an important cause of the Second Jewish Revolt against Rome (132 A.D.–135 A.D.)—the so-called Bar Kochba revolt—which proved no more successful than the first.) The Roman Governor ceremoniously ploughed over the line of the projected walls of the new city. He named the rebuilt city, from which Jews were excluded, Aelia Capitolina. (Aelia was Hadrian’s family name; Capitolina honored the three Roman gods and goddesses [Jupiter, Juno and Minerva] of the Capitoline).

It has generally been thought that the present line of the Old City walls follows the line of the walls of Aelia Capitolina and that Suleiman the Magnificent built his wall—which still surrounds the Old City—on the line of the Aelia Capitolina wall. However, this seems not to have been the case, at least on the southern wall. South of Suleiman’s wall—the supposed line of Aelia Capitolina—are major Byzantine buildings—like the Nea Church (see “Found After 1400 Years—The Magnificent Nea”) and adjacent hospices. Clearly these Byzantine buildings were inside the city—after the period of the Roman Aelia Capitolina. These buildings pass through the present Turkish line of the southern wall of the Old City as if it didn’t exist. Thus the line of the present southern wall of the Old City must have been fixed after, not before, the Byzantine period.

Ben-Dov has also uncovered considerable remains from the Middle Ages. The Tanner’s Gate, a small postern gate, identified on several old maps, has been found blocked up (No. 5 on the map). The outline of the former door of the postern gate is revealed by straight joints which distinguish it from earlier masonry. During the Middle Ages, the tanners apparently plied their foul-smelling trade outside this postern gate. So at least from this date the line of the southern wall of the Old City was fixed on its present line.

Ben-Dov also found several crusader turrets extending out from Suleiman’s wall. Suleiman did not build above these turrets, seemingly confident of his ability to defend the city—especially on the south with its difficult hilly approach—without these towers.

On the other side—the eastern side—of Dung Gate, excavations along the southern wall continue under the direction of Professor Benjamin Mazar (No. 6 on the map). Press reports last spring announced that excavations in this area had been completed and 023that the dig had ended. I asked the 71-year old Mazar about these reports that his excavation had stopped. “We are stopping continuously,” he replied. “We have been stopping for two years.” In the meantime the work goes on. It is expected to continue another two years. The excavation has now reached the modern road which runs around the old city, so it would appear that that is as far as the excavation will go.

The magnificent Herodian steps and plaza which adjoin the southern wall of the Temple Mount have now been considerably reconstructed and provide a moving picture of the approach to the Temple Mount in Jesus’ time. (See drawing)

As one moves further south from the plaza—toward the modern road—the hill drops off and the excavations afford an unusual opportunity to see the remains of buildings of different historical periods at different archaeological levels—one building literally on top of the other.

South of the palatial Herodian steps, where the land falls off, the excavators have found a massive Omayyad building, with walls more than three feet thick, built in part from masonry previously used by Herod in his retaining wall for the Temple Mount, a wall largely destroyed by the Romans in 70 A.D. (This Omayyad building is similar to the so-called Omayyad Palace which Mazar found several years ago adjacent to the Southern Wall of the Temple Mount.)

Standing on the thick Omayyad wall facing south, one can look beneath it and see the remains of an earlier Byzantine building. The Byzantine building is built on a slightly different axis, so it is easy to identify. Fortunately the Byzantine building did not cover the entire area adjacent to the Omayyad building on the south. As a result, we can see at a still lower level, east of the Byzantine building, the remains of Herodian buildings which were not covered by the later Byzantine construction. (At one point, three stories of a Herodian building are extant.) Still lower, in what looks to an amateur like the basement of the Herodian building, are the remains of walls dating to the period of the First Temple—Solomon’s Temple. Over 250 restorable 7th century B.C. storage jars have been found in this area. (See illustration)

In fill beneath these walls, Mazar has found pottery from still earlier ages—from the Early Bronze Age (3d Millennium B.C.), the Middle Bronze Age (Early 2d Millennium B.C.), the Late Bronze Age (Late 2d Millennium B.C.), and the Early Iron Age or Iron I (1200 B.C.–1000 B.C.). The only period for 024which Mazar has found almost nothing is the Persian period (540 B.C.–330 B.C.); Mazar showed me the single sherd which could be identified from the Persian period, the only archaeological evidence that the Persian Period existed in this area.

Separating the maze of walls and levels is an enormously complicated task which will take years, if not decades. Many doubt it will ever be done. Some say the work proceeded too quickly, the records are too scanty or missing and that inter-personal rivalries and disputes among the archaeologists themselves have marred the work and its potential.

Mazar believes that at the lowest level of the extant walls, he has found the remains of the Beth Millo, where, the Bible tells us, King Joash was murdered. Etymologically millo means “fill”. (When you drive into an Israeli gas station and want him to fill it up, you say “maleh”.) Scholars generally agree that Biblical references to the millo in Jerusalem and elsewhere (see, for example, Judges 9; 2 Samuel 5:9; 1 Chronicles 11:8), refer to the fill that created terraces on which buildings could be built in hilly areas, thereby increasing the available land inside small walled cities. Because the millo supported the buildings, it was important to keep it in good repair (see 1 Kings 11:27; 2 Chronicles 32:5).

The Bible does not tell us much about King Joash of Judah who ruled from 836 025B.C. to 798 B.C. He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, although he did not destroy the hill-shrines or bamot (2 Kings 12:2–3). He repaired the temple. When Hazael, king of Aram, attacked Jerusalem, Joash paid him a massive tribute, including gold from the Temple, to withdraw. At the end of Joash’s 40-year reign, Joash’s own staff revolted and murdered him. This they did in the Beth Millo or house on the Millo. As the Bible describes it: “His servants revolted against [Joash] and struck him down in the house of Millo [Beth Millo] on the descent to Silla. His servants Jozachar son of Shimeat and Jehozabed son of Shomer struck the fatal blow.” (2 Kings 12:20–21). Mazar believes the Beth Millo was located on the millo or fill between the ancient City of David on the south and the Temple Mount on which King Solomon built his temple on the north. A natural depression separates these areas and Mazar thinks it was filled in to create a millo or building foundation. The Beth Millo or house of Millo was built on this foundation. This Beth Millo, Mazar believes, was an especially important building used for administrative and military purposes. The building which Mazar claims to have found covers more than 1¼ dunams or 1/3 of an acre. Its massive walls are in some places over 12 feet thick. Only traces of the building remain, but Mazar believes that when all the drawings are in, he will be able to connect the traces of the walls of this enormous building that now appear at various points in the extensive excavations. If he can do this, he will be able to reconstruct the plan of the Beth Millo. Mazar finds support for his interpretations from parallels to his Beth Millo in excavations at Shechem and in Assyrian palaces.

Fresh news of future excavations completes the archaeological picture from Jerusalem. A major new archaeological expedition is being planned for the oldest part of ancient Jerusalem, the so-called City of David. (In David’s time Jerusalem was confined to the little eastern hill south of Dung Gate.) This excavation, which will be led by Yigael Shilo of Hebrew University, will explore some of the same areas excavated by Kathleen Kenyon in the 1960’s. The expedition is expected to begin digging in 1978 and will continue for at least five years.

Funds for the expedition will be provided by a group of South Africans led by Mendel Kaplan of Johannesburg. The dig will be important not only because of the unparalleled importance of the site, but also because funds have already been committed not only for the publication of results but also for preservation and restoration of areas to be excavated. In addition, the expedition will restore much of the remains of the Kenyon excavations. The result should be a major addition to Jerusalem’s archaeological parks.

What the stock market is to Wall Street and government to Washington, archaeology is to Jerusalem.
It is full of archaeological talk and archaeological gossip, of new finds and ideas and speculations.