“Building C,” her grandfather called it. The modest designation reflected uncertainty about the structure’s function, although Professor Benjamin Mazar, director of the decade-long Jerusalem Temple Mount Excavations, thought that it might be the Beth Millo, the place where King Joash was assassinated (2 Kings 12:21). When archaeologist Eilat Mazar began processing Iron Age finds from her distinguished grandfather’s excavations, Building C intrigued her. It was the only First Temple-period structure (c. ninth century B.C.) to come to light in the nine-acre dig on Jerusalem’s Ophel ridge. The younger Mazar launched her own investigation and, to everyone’s surprise, discovered that […]