Abraham Rabinovich
A STRANGE, stepped structure unlike any other ever uncovered in a biblical city in Israel has emerged from the stony slopes of David’s City to raise intriguing speculations, one of them so outlandish that archaeologists hesitate to speak it.
Dr. Yigal Shiloh of Hebrew University pointed out the monumental structure, higher than a five-story building, during a press tour in August summing up the third season of excavations at David’s City which he heads.
Shiloh said the structure was unique in this country, both in its shape and its monumentality. He attributed it to the period of David and Solomon, making it the first structure of any significance from that golden age ever to be found inside the city walls of Jerusalem.
And what a structure! It was unearthed in part by Prof. R.A.S. Macalister, an Irish archaeologist who excavated in the area between 1923 and 1925. Referred to as a ramp or “glacis” (a sloping defense wall), the structure was identified by Macalister as part of the defense network of the Israelite city of David and Solomon, and its Jebusite predecessor.
During her digs in 1961–7, Kathleen Kenyon strongly refuted Macalister’s dating, attributing the defence system to the Second Temple period hundreds of years later. Kenyon’s argument was accepted by the archaeological community as a whole, including, as he testified at the press conference, Shiloh himself, the first archaeologist since Kenyon to dig in David’s City.
This summer, however, the Israeli came to a different conclusion after his team exposed another seven meters of the structure, making it 16 meters in height. The Shiloh team was able to pinpoint
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the structure in a time “sandwich” created by Canaanite remains of the 13th Century B.C. found directly beneath the glacis and First Temple period houses, probably from the 10th Century B.C., found atop the bottom portion of the slope.
The glacis therefore could not have been built earlier than the 13th century, whose remains under-pinned it, nor later than the 10th century whose remains sat atop it. With this as a time range, it was logical to assume that the massive structure was constructed by the empire-building Israelites rather than their small-town Jebusite predecessors. And if Israelite, then most likely Solomonic, since he was the great builder, as the Bible tells us.
The structure is located in what is probably the area of the royal acropolis at the northern end of the City of David, where Solomon built palaces for himself and Pharaoh’s daughter — whom he had married.
During the press tour of the excavations, Shiloh did not offer speculations as to its function.
A press release he issued suggested that it might have been part of the citadel of the city. The release noted that the structure was inside the city, some 30 meters up-slope from the city wall. “Until this day, no monumental construction such as this has been uncovered in Israel in any other biblical city,” it said.
During the tour, Shiloh declined to be pinned down when reporters pressed him about what he thought the structure was.
He was more forthcoming, however, in a telephone interview later. A reporter noted that the sloping structure was stepped, rather than smooth-faced, which seemed a peculiar configuration for a glacis aimed at keeping attackers at bay. In addition, Shiloh had pointed out low entrance-way like openings at the bottom of the structure. This too seemed peculiar for a defence wall.
Shiloh readily agreed that these were peculiarities and that the structure might indeed not be a glacis.
Might it have served as a base for a monumental building? It might, said Shiloh. That was one of the avenues that would be explored. So too would the possibility that it was part of a fortification system, he said.
But there were other possibilities too, he added, such as the pyramid-like structure’s not being a building foundation or a defence wall but a building unto itself with its own specific function.
“Such as a pyramid?”
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Stepped structure dated to the time of Solomon by archaeologists rises 16 meters in the City of David. The bottom half was exposed during the 1980 season of excavations. The low entrance-like openings can be seen at the bottom.
“Such as a pyramid.”
Shiloh attempted to back away from the sensationalist implications of that line of thought by noting that it was not a true pyramid since it inclined atop the ruins of the Canaanite city rather than being free-standing. Other archaeologists also pointed out that while Solomon may have married Pharaoh’s daughter, the custom of burying dead royalty in pyramids was no longer being practiced in Egypt when Solomon inherited the kingship from his father David. kingship from his father, David.
Noting that the search for the tombs of the House of David had been a popular pursuit in the past — one of his predecessors claimed to have found them close to 70 years ago near the southern end of the City of David — Shiloh said, “If we come across the tomb of David in the City of David it won’t need speculation. It will be clear.”
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The openings in the bottom of the sloping structure had proved to be dead-ends, said Shiloh. During next year’s dig, he said, the structure will be further explored and perhaps prove to be even higher than it appears today. Shiloh said he had his own ideas of what the structure was, but declined to elaborate.
Regardless of what the structure turns out to be, what is apparently the first discovery of what may be a public building in Solomonic Jerusalem is a major archaeological event, particularly when it is of such unique monumentality and shape.
Another important accomplishment by this season’s dig — one with major tourism implications — was to begin clearing the underground water system leading to Warren’s Shaft above the Gihon Spring. Two mining engineers from South Africa — experts in shoring up abandoned mines — reopened a horizontal tunnel from the face of the slope above the spring into the mountainside. This tunnel intersected the elaborate underground system constructed by the ancients to permit residents of the city to draw water from the spring which was outside the city walls, during a siege.
Shiloh’s team, which included some 250 volunteers, began clearing debris from this system.
Within a few years, the area is to be incorporated into the national park being developed around the Old City, and visitors will be able to make their way down the underground system, which is 6 meters high and 2½ meters wide in places, to see how water was drawn up the 13-meter shaft from the spring.
In addition to the mining engineers, brought here at the expense of South African patrons of the dig, Shiloh was assisted again by members of the Jerusalem Alpine Club, who climbed the shaft from below in order to rig a ladder and provide a way for workers to help clear the system from its lower end.
Shiloh said he was of the opinion, along with Yigael Yadin and other archaeologists, that the shaft was not the gutter up which Joab led his men, according to the Bible, to capture the Jebusite city for David. The elaborate underground system, he believes, was constructed by the Israelites along with similar water engineering projects at Megiddo, Hazor and elsewhere. There is, however, no firm archaeological dating.
For the first time since antiquity, it is possible to descend the underground system, at least from its midway point, to the shaft head. The original tunnel opening is covered with debris from
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The horizontal tunnel which leads from the face of the slope above the Gihon Spring to the elaborate underground water system beneath ancient Jerusalem.
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previous archaeological digs upslope, including Kenyon’s. In coming seasons, Shiloh plans to clear the tunnel opening.
One of the conclusions of this season’s dig was that the system was in use as late as the Second Temple period, much later than had been thought.
This season’s dig also uncovered more of the city wall of the First Temple period, revealing it now for a length of 45 meters. The remains are 3–4 meters high.
Among the numerous small finds made was a black stone seal in the shape of a scarab, bearing the name of Psamtik I, an Egyptian Pharaoh who lived towards the end of the 7th century B.C. The seal was found in the ruins of a house destroyed by Nebuchadnezzer shortly after that date. The excavators also found many Hebrew inscriptions from the 8th through the 6th centuries B.C. written in ink on potsherds.
Digging at six different sites, the excavators uncovered pottery from the earliest period of settlement in Jerusalem, the end of the fourth millennium B.C. They also uncovered for the first time, building remains clearly dating to Canaanite Jerusalem, which is mentioned in the el-Amarna letters of the 14th Century B.C. found in Egypt.
The excavations are being carried out by the City of David Society, which was formed by the Hebrew University, the Israel Exploration Society and the Jerusalem Foundation, a group of sponsors from South Africa headed by Mendel Kaplan and the Ambassador Cultural Foundation from the U.S. Assistance was also provided by the Rothschild Fund and the Jerusalem municipality. Dr. Shiloh, who is part of Hebrew University’s Institute of Archaeology, noted that the excavation site is state-owned,
A fourth season of digging will get under way next July.
(Reprinted from the August 10-16, 1980 issue of The Jerusalem Post International Edition.)
In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent His only begotten. Son into the world, that we might live through Him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
1 John 4:9, 10