Scholars’ Corner: Has Jerusalem’s Millo Been Found?
One of the puzzles British archaeologist Kathleen Kenyon solved during her Jerusalem excavations of 1961–1967 was the meaning of the untranslatable Biblical word Millo. Or did she?
On the steep eastern slope of the city of David (or Ophel), the site of the original city of Jerusalem south of the Temple Mount, Kenyon uncovered tier upon tier of architectural terracing buried beneath an avalanche of stone and debris.
Kenyon identified this terracing, which had supported buildings of the city located on the slope, as the Millo of the Bible: “And David dwelt in the stronghold, and called it the city of David. And David built the city round about from the Millo inward” (2 Samuel 5:9). The Millo is also mentioned in 1 Kings 9:15, 24; 11:27; 1 Chronicles 11:8 and in 2 Chronicles 32:5. Etymologically, Millo is related to a root meaning “filling,” and here there was filling aplenty. Moreover, we know from the Bible that the Millo was located in Jerusalem and had to be repaired from time to time.
Prior to Kenyon’s solution the only thing scholars could agree on was that the Millo was an element in the defenses of the City of David in Solomon’s time. As one scholar put it, everything else that had been “said about the Millo did not go beyond a reasonable possibility and quite often it was less than that.” (J. Simons, Jerusalem in the Old Testament, p. 131.)
Once proposed, Kenyon’s solution was eagerly accepted by most scholars, including Benjamin Mazar, Yigael Yadin, Michael Avi Yonah and Joseph Callaway.
Now Lawrence E. Stager of the University of Chicago’s Oriental Institute says Kenyon was wrong. (See “The Archaeology of the East Slope of Jerusalem and the Terraces of the Kidron,” Journal of Near Eastern Studies, Vol. 41, No. 2 (1982), pp. 111–121.)
What Kenyon actually found, says Stager, were the sadmot qidron or Kidron Valley terraces which are referred to in 2 Kings 23:4. According to this Biblical passage, during King Josiah’s religious reformation (in 621 B.C.) the king ordered the high priest of Yahweh’s temple to remove all the objects that had been made for Ba’al, Asherah and other idols. These objects were then “burned outside Jerusalem on the terraces of the Kidron (sadmot qidron).”
Stager notes that, to the passerby looking up from the Kidron Valley, the east slope of Jerusalem would have looked like a great flight of steps with houses and gardens perched on each step. The stone and nubble cores would have been completely concealed by the retaining walls and by the various structures on the tops of the terraces. Why then would these terraces have been referred to, in the Biblical passages Kenyon cited, as the concealed fill, Stager asks?
Moreover, these architectural terraces were built by the Jebusites in the Late Bronze Age (1550 B.C.–1200 B.C.). The Biblical data, however, give us no reason to think that the Millo was built before the United Monarchy and probably no earlier than King Solomon’s reign.
The case for identifying these architectural terraces as the sadmot qidron, on the other hand, is strong, says Stager. Qidron is clearly the Kidron Valley. In Hebrew and Ugaritic poetry the word sadmot denotes agricultural terraces, where vineyards and fig and olive orchards were planted. From agricultural terraces the meaning of sadmot was extended to architectural terraces for buildings and their adjacent trees and gardens, says Stager.
Stager notes that Kenyon found these architectural terraces outside the walls as well as inside the walls. That is why the Biblical passage tells us the burning occurred “outside Jerusalem”—on that part of the architectural terraces outside the walls. Moreover, just outside the walls in this area, Kenyon found two caves filled with cultic artifacts. In one she found an incense stand, at least 84 anthropomorphic (human-shaped) and zoomorphic (animal-shaped) figurines, and hundreds of pots. Sixteen of the figurines had great pendulous breasts, representing the mother goddess, perhaps Asherah herself. A few miniature clay horses had disc-shaped applique’s on their foreheads, which may have represented the sun. Kenyon plausibly suggested that these miniature models might have been similar to the “Horses of the Sun” which, we are told in 2 Kings 23:11, Josiah had removed from the entrance to the Temple (see “The Mystery of the Horses of the Sun at the Temple Entrance,” BAR 04:02). (The cache in this cave, however, dates to about 700 B.C., too early to be the actual objects Josiah had burned, especially as there is no evidence of burning; but the cave is indicative of what went on in the area.) Finally, an analysis of the geography of the area and the Biblical references to various parts of the city, especially Jeremiah’s survey of Jerusalem, suggest this location for the sadmot qidron.
What and where, then, is the Millo? Perhaps, suggests Stager, it is the magnificent five-story-high stepped stone structure recently unearthed by Yigal Shiloh further up on the slope near the crest of the hill (see “New York Times Misrepresents Major Jerusalem Discovery,” BAR 07:04). Although the upper courses of this structure were exposed in the 1920’s by R. A. S. Macalister, Shiloh dug deeper and has conclusively demonstrated that the stepped structure predates the eighth century B.C. houses built over its midsection. Perhaps, if the royal precincts of Jerusalem extended as far south as this stepped structure it might have served as the base for the citadel wall or a podium for a building or buildings of the royal acropolis. As such, the stepped structure might well be the Millo. If not, opines Stager, somewhere between the stepped structure and Solomon’s extension to the north of David’s city, the great “filling” might yet someday be found.
Dating the Cardo Maximus in Jerusalem
As BAR readers will recall, there was great excitement when Nachman Avigad found what initially looked like the Roman period Cardo in his Jewish Quarter excavations in Jerusalem.a The Cardo, or Cardo Maximus, was the main street in Roman-built cities. Archaeologists assumed that when the Romans re-built Jerusalem as a Roman city called Aelia Capitolina following Jerusalem’s destruction in the Bar-Kochba revolt (132–135 A.D.) they must have built a Cardo in the southern part of the city. It was here that Avigad was excavating.
Much to everyone’s surprise, including Avigad’s, the Cardo turned out to date to the Byzantine period (4th–6th centuries). As Avigad explains it in his new book (in Hebrew) on the excavationsb:
“When we began our excavations of the street, we had no doubts as to its date. From the beginning we were sure that if we should discover the Cardo, it would be the Roman street which had been planned and built as part of the city of Aelia Capitolina and which continued in use in the Byzantine period, as evidenced by the Madaba Map. This seemed axiomatic to all of us.
“However, after the Cardo was uncovered in the Street of the Jews, we realized beyond the shadow of a doubt not only that the street which we discovered had been last in use in the Byzantine period (according to the ceramic and numismatic evidence found in the drainage canals), but that it had been built in the Byzantine period. We arrived at this important conclusion on the basis of the architectonic style (the Corinthian capitals), but primarily on the basis of the large quantities of Byzantine ceramics under the paving. We discovered no remains or finds which would indicate that this Byzantine street was the earlier Roman street which had been repaired. Moreover, architect Doron Chen observed that the Cardo had been built according to the Byzantine foot of 32 cm (12.6 inches) and not the Roman foot of 29.6 cm (11.6 inches).
“We drew the obvious conclusion that the Cardo Maximus of Jerusalem which was uncovered in our excavations in the southern part of the city was not part of Aelia Capitolina, but only of Byzantine Jerusalem.” (Translated by Dr. Carol Bosworth Kutscher).
In an article in the January–June 1982 issue of the Palestine Exploration Quarterly (“Dating the Cardo Maximus in Jerusalem”), architect Chen explains that the colonnade on each side of the street was 5.12 meters (16.6 feet) wide which is 16 Byzantine feet (or podes) of 32 cm each. In the stylobate for the western colonnade, the archaeologists found two shallow depressions for columns. These were set 18 Byzantine feet apart (measured between centers of the columns). The width of the street—between the colonnades on either side—is 38 Byzantine feet (or 19 Byzantine feet from the axis of the spina in the center of the street to the edge of the pavement).
Chen explains that the Cardo was planned to have a width of 70 Byzantine feet or 22.4 meters (72.8 feet), although as excavated, it varies in width from 22.5 to 23.5 meters.
Chen concludes that the use of the Byzantine foot in whole number multiples confirms that it was the unit of measurement employed in the construction of the Cardo; this observation supports the conclusion that the Cardo was built during the Byzantine period.