Topography of Jerusalem
Jerusalem sits atop the watershed between the wooded Judean hills and fertile lowlands (Shefelah) to the west, and the barren wilderness of Judea (Judean desert) to the east, at an elevation of 800 meters above sea level, compared with the Dead Sea at 400 meters below sea level. The landscape provides a dramatic setting for this holy city, which is powerful and inspiring because of its starkness rather than its natural beauty. The first people who settled Jerusalem some 5,000 years ago were attracted to this spot for more prosaic reasons — specifically, by water. Jerusalem's earliest settlement was located on a small hill that forms a spur to the south of the Temple Mount (in Hebrew, har ha-bayit; in Arabic, al-haram al-sharif, which means the Noble Enclosure or Sacred Enclosure), the great esplanade (open platform) in the southeast corner of the modern Old City. This small hill came to be known by several names: the City of David; the eastern hill; and the lower city. Despite its size (only about 11 acres) and relatively low elevation, Jerusalem's first inhabitants settled on this hill because of its proximity to the only perennial source of fresh water in the area: the Gihon spring, which gushes forth at the foot of the eastern slope of the City of David. The City of David offered early inhabitants the additional advantage of natural protection, consisting of the Kidron Valley to the east and, to the west, the Tyropoeon [pronounced tie-rho-PEE-un] Valley (an ancient Greek name meaning the “Valley of the Cheesemakers"; it is sometimes also called the Central Valley because it begins at the modern Damascus Gate and runs south through the center of the Old City today). The Kidron and Tyropoeon valleys meet at the southern tip of the City of David. The Mount of Olives, which is the highest mountain ridge in Jerusalem, rises to the east of the Kidron Valley
2.1 Aerial view of Jerusalem from the south. Courtesy of Zev Radovan/BibleLandPictures. com.
Before dropping steeply down toward the Dead Sea further to the east. The configuration of bedrock in the City of David is such that the bedrock is lowest at the southern tip and rises steadily toward the north, culminating in a rocky outcrop that eventually became the Temple Mount.
Archaeological remains — consisting mostly of pottery vessels from tombs and fragmentary walls belonging to houses — indicate that Jerusalem was first settled in the Early Bronze Age (ca. 3000 B. C.E.). By the Middle Bronze Age (ca. 1800 B. C.E.), the settlement was fortified and equipped with a sophisticated water system (discussed later). Bronze Age documents from Egypt called the Execration Texts (ca. 1900 B. C.E.) and the el-Amarna letters (ca. 1400 B. C.E.) confirm the existence of a settlement in Jerusalem at this time. These documents refer to Jerusalem as “Rushalimum," similar to the name “Urusalim" which is mentioned in later Akkadian texts. The original Hebrew name was probably Yerushalem. Although by the late Second Temple period Yerushalayim had come to be understood as deriving from the Hebrew word shalom (peace), the original name probably referred to Shalem, apparently the patron god of the city. In antiquity, many towns and cities were named in honor of the patron deity. For example, Athens was named after Athena, and Jericho (Hebrew yericho) was probably named in honor of the moon god (yare'ach). Genesis 14:18 mentions Melchizedek, the king of Shalem, likely a reference to Jerusalem: “And King
Melchizedek of Salem (Hebrew: Shalem) brought out bread and wine; he was priest of God Most High" (New Revised Standard Version [NRSV]).
During the Bronze Age the rest of the country was inhabited by the Canaan-ites, who established an urban civilization centered on fortified cities such as Hazor, Megiddo, Shechem, Gezer, and Lachish. In contrast to other parts of the ancient Near East, such as Egypt and Mesopotamia (the area of modern Iraq), the Canaanite city-states were never united under the rule of a single monarch. According to the Hebrew Bible, by the time the Israelites arrived in Canaan (ca. 1200 B. C.E.), Jerusalem was inhabited by the Jebusites. We do not know whether the Jebusites were Canaanites or an ethnically unrelated population. The original settlement in Jerusalem was confined to the small hill south of the later Temple Mount, which became known as the City of David after King David conquered the Jebusite city (ca. 1000 B. C.E.).
David reportedly brought the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem and made it the capital of his kingdom. Jerusalem was a logical choice as capital city both because of its central location and because it was conquered by David, and therefore did not belong to any one of the twelve tribes. David's son and successor, Solomon, expanded the city to the north, building the first temple (Solomon's temple) and a new palace on the Temple Mount. The temple apparently stood on a natural outcrop of bedrock (today enshrined in the Muslim Dome of the Rock), which physically dominated the City of David and transformed the Temple Mount into the city's acropolis. Although today many people associate an “acropolis" with Athens, most ancient towns and cities had an acropolis — that is, a fortified citadel that contained key political and religious buildings.
By the latter part of the eighth century, Jerusalem's population could no longer be accommodated on the small hill of the City of David alone. The city did not expand to the east — the Mount of Olives always lay outside the walls and was used from the earliest periods as Jerusalem's necropolis (cemetery/burial ground) — but instead grew to the west, across the Tyropoeon Valley. This area, called the western hill, is larger and higher in elevation than the City of David, and therefore is also known as the upper city (in contrast to the City of David, which is the lower city). The western hill had the advantage of natural protection on three of four sides. On the east, the western hill is bounded by the Tyropoeon Valley, which separates it from the Temple Mount and City of David. On the west and south, the western hill is encircled by the Ben-Hinnom Valley, which begins by the modern Jaffa Gate (the main gate in the middle of the western side of the Old City today), and joins the Kidron and Tyropoeon valleys at the southern tip of the City of David. The Ben-Hinnom Valley is notorious as the place where some Israelites offered child sacrifices, a Canaanite and Phoenician practice that was condemned by the prophet Jeremiah: “'For the people of Judah have done evil in my sight,' says the Lord; they have set their abominations in the house that is called by my name, defiling it. And they
2.2 Topographic map of Jerusalem. A reconstruction by Leen Ritmeyer ©.
Go on building the high place of Topheth, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom (Ben-Hinnom), to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire" (Jeremiah 7:30-31; NRSV).
Only the north side of Jerusalem was not protected by deep natural valleys. Instead, a shallow ravine called the Transverse Valley marks the northern end of the western hill, running east from the modern Jaffa Gate to the Temple Mount, where it joins the Tyropoeon Valley. In antiquity, Jerusalem usually was attacked from the north because of the lack of natural defenses. For example, when the Romans besieged Jerusalem in 70 C. E., they attacked from the north, even though this side of the city was protected by three successive lines of walls.
The area we have just described — the City of David, Temple Mount, and western hill — constituted the city of Jerusalem until its destruction by the Romans in 70 C. E. (although by then settlement had expanded farther to the north). Nowadays many visitors to Jerusalem have the mistaken impression that the Old City is the ancient city. In fact, the current walls of the Old City date to the Ottoman Turkish period (sixteenth century C. E.), and they enclose only part of the original ancient city but leave outside the City of David and the southern part of the western hill (now known as Mount Zion). In other words, the walled city has shifted to the north since antiquity. This shift occurred when the Roman emperor Hadrian rebuilt Jerusalem in the second century C. E. as a pagan Roman city called Aelia Capitolina (see Chapter 13). The line of the current Ottoman walls reflects this later shift to the north.
Today the area inside the walls of the Old City is divided into four quarters. The Jewish Quarter occupies the southern part of the city — that is, the area around and opposite the Western Wall (“Wailing Wall") and the Temple Mount. The Christian Quarter is in the northwest part of the city, surrounding the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. The Armenian Quarter is in the southwest corner of the Old City, and the Muslim Quarter occupies the northeast part. The huge esplanade of the Temple Mount takes up the southeast corner of the Old City.
Historical Background: The Iron Age (1200-586 B. C.E.)
By the end of the Late Bronze Age (thirteenth century B. C.E.), the eastern Mediterranean was ringed by mighty powers, including the New Kingdom in Egypt, the Mycenean kingdoms in Greece, and the Hittites in Anatolia (Asia Minor or modern Turkey). Documents such as the el-Amarna letters indicate that the rulers of these empires and kingdoms corresponded with one another, and imported artifacts found in archaeological excavations attest to lively international trade and contacts. Around 1200 B. C.E., these powers collapsed. The reasons for the collapse are debated, although it must have been caused by a complex and interrelated series of events. Certainly the collapse involved large-scale movements of peoples, some of whom may have been hostile invaders responsible for the waves of destruction, whereas others were refugees uprooted from their homes as a result of the upheavals. The year 1200 B. C.E. marks the great watershed between the Bronze Age and the Iron Age around the eastern Mediterranean. According to later tradition, the Trojan War was fought around this time, followed by the Dorian invasion of Greece (the arrival of tribes speaking the Doric Greek dialect).
It was against the backdrop of these events that the Israelite tribes arrived in Canaan and settled the interior hill country from Galilee to the northern Negev. Many scholars now believe that at least some of the early Israelites were actually Canaanites, who joined with new arrivals (including perhaps a small group from Egypt — hence the story of the Exodus) to form a new group unified by their worship of a patron deity known as YHWH (Yahweh). The interior hill country is a harsh, rocky, and relatively arid region compared with the fertile lowlands and coastal plain to the west. The Israelite settlement, at least initially, consisted of small villages whose inhabitants survived by raising crops such as grain, olives, and grapes, and herding animals, mainly sheep and goats. The coastal plain was settled around the same time by groups of refugees from the Aegean (the Sea Peoples). One of these groups, the Philistines, established a kingdom (Philistia) on the southern coastal plain centered on five cities: Gaza, Ashdod, Ashkelon, Gath (Tell es-Safi), and Ekron (Tel Miqne). The Hebrew Bible describes ongoing hostilities between the Israelites and their Philistine neighbors, including episodes involving Samson and Delilah, David and Goliath, and the death of Saul (the first Israelite king) and his three sons in a battle against the Philistines at the foot of Mount Gilboa.
The Iron Age in Palestine is characterized by a process of state formation that gave rise to the emergence of different — albeit sometimes related — peoples and kingdoms. In addition to the Israelites and Philistines, the Hebrew Bible mentions Ammonites (in the area around modern Amman in Jordan), Moabites (in the territory to the south of Amman, east of the Jordan river and northeast of the Dead Sea), and Edomites (in the territory to the south of Moab, southeast of the Dead Sea). The area to the north, corresponding with modern Lebanon, was occupied by the Phoenicians, who were the Iron Age descendants of the Canaanites. The designation Phoenician originated with ancient Greek writers, who grouped under this rubric the inhabitants of independent cities such as Tyre, Sidon, Byblos (Gebal), and Beirut (Berytus). With access to the interior blocked by the anti-Lebanon mountain range, the Phoenician coastal cities turned to the sea, controlling much of the trade around the Mediterranean basin during the Iron Age. The Phoenicians established a series of trading posts and colonies around the Mediterranean littoral, and traded with the Greeks, who adopted the Phoenician alphabet in the eighth century. Carthage (in modern Tunisia), which was founded as a Phoenician colony, later became a great power that threatened Rome.
The Hebrew Bible describes contacts — sometimes hostile and sometimes friendly — between the Israelites and the surrounding peoples. For example, King Solomon formed political alliances with neighboring kingdoms by marrying their princesses: “King Solomon loved many foreign women along with the daughter of Pharaoh: Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonian [Phoenician], and Hittite women" (1 Kings 11:1; NRSV). Solomon also signed a commercial treaty
The Archaeology of the Holy Land Sidebar: What Is a Temple?
In antiquity a temple was the house of a god or goddess — a concept expressed in the Hebrew Bible by the use of the term “house" (bayit) for Solomon's temple (and hence har ha-bayit — the mountain of the house — for Jerusalem's Temple Mount). The earliest Greek temples resembled modest houses, but eventually the Greeks began to build larger and more elaborate houses for their gods, which led to the development of the Doric and Ionic orders of architecture. Because a temple was conceived of literally as the house in which the deity dwelled, most people in the ancient world never entered the building. Instead they stayed outside the temple, congregating around an open-air altar where sacrifices were offered. Usually only priests entered the temple, to service the needs of the deity (feed, clothe, and bathe the god). The temples of the God of Israel (the first and second temples in Jerusalem) functioned in this manner, with the main differences from other ancient temples being that (1) there was no cult statue or depiction of the God of Israel; and (2) whereas other gods could be worshiped at more than one temple, the Temple Mount came to be the only acceptable spot for the house of the God of Israel (even this principle was not observed universally, though, as ancient temples with sacrificial cults to the God of Israel existed at Elephantine and Leontopolis in Egypt).
Synagogues, churches, and mosques are congregational halls that accommodate groups of people for the purposes of worship and prayer. In contrast to temples, people assemble inside these buildings, rather than standing outside and watching sacrifices offered by priests. Despite the modern custom of referring to synagogues as “temples," they are not the same at all.
With King Hiram of Tyre, trading wheat and oil for cedars of Lebanon (used to build the Jerusalem temple and Solomon's new palace). Together Solomon and Hiram opened a new port on the Red Sea, through which they imported valuable luxury items such as gold, silver, and ivory.
The kingdom of David and Solomon is known as the United Monarchy or United Kingdom. One of the hottest debates among biblical scholars and archaeologists in recent years is whether the biblical description of the United Kingdom is relatively accurate, highly exaggerated, or completely fabricated. Scholars who believe it is exaggerated claim that David existed but was a minor tribal chief, and that Jerusalem of the United Monarchy was a modest settlement lacking monumental structures. Other scholars claim that the Hebrew Bible was composed so long after the time of David and Solomon that the description of the United Monarchy is completely tendentious and lacks any historical basis. Archaeological remains in Jerusalem seem to support a position midway between
2.3 Map of Iron Age Palestine. Ancient World Mapping Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (Www. unc. edu/awmc).
The first two views — that is, the biblical account may be somewhat exaggerated, but not to the degree claimed by some scholars.
When Solomon died (ca. 930 B. C.E.), the United Kingdom split into two: the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah, reflecting
Pre-existing tensions between the northern and southern tribes. Eventually the northern kings established a capital city at Samaria, whereas Jerusalem remained the capital of the southern kingdom. The biblical writers generally present the kings of Judah in a positive light while condemning the kings of Israel. Their negative presentation of the northern kings stems partly from a preference for exclusive Yahwism (the worship of the God of Israel alone) over the inclusive Yahwism of the northern elite (who worshiped other gods alongside the God ofIsrael). The biblical writers also promoted the centralization of the cult of the God of Israel in Jerusalem, condemning the establishment of rural sanctuaries around the country. These views privileged Judah, which controlled the Jerusalem temple, over Israel. The biases of the biblical writers are evident in their negative portrayal of northern kings such as Ahab, whom they condemned for marrying Jezebel, the daughter of the king of Tyre. Jezebel is accused by the biblical writers of having induced Ahab to build a temple (“house") to Baal in Samaria. Indeed, the name Bel/Baal, the national deity of the Canaanites and Phoenicians, is embedded within Jezebel's own name (in other words, Jezebel's name is theophoric, meaning that it contains the name of a deity). The Hebrew Bible describes repeated confrontations between Ahab and Jezebel on the one hand and the staunchly Yahwist prophet Elijah on the other hand. Jezebel's gory death at the hands of a military officer named Yehu — who had Jezebel thrown out of a second-story palace window and left her remains to be devoured by dogs — is portrayed by the biblical writers as a fulfillment of Elijah's prophecies.
During the ninth and eighth centuries B. C.E., the [neo-] Assyrian empire became the dominant power in the ancient Near East, extending its control westward and launching a series of invasions into the kingdoms of Israel and Judah. Israel finally fell in 722 B. C.E., when the Assyrians took Samaria and exiled the northern elite (an event that is the source of the legend of the Ten Lost Tribes, referring to the members of the northern tribes who were dispersed). Twenty years later, the Assyrians invaded Judah (701 B. C.E.). They destroyed a number of towns, including the important southern town of Lachish (between Jerusalem and Beersheba); ravaged the countryside; and besieged Jerusalem. In advance of the Assyrian siege Hezekiah, the king of Judah, fortified Jerusalem and built a new water supply system. The Assyrians ended up withdrawing without taking Jerusalem (according to the biblical account, a plague sent by God broke out in the Assyrian camp, but Assyrian sources suggest that the king withdrew because of unrest elsewhere in the empire). The kingdom of Judah survived the invasion but became a vassal state of Assyria.
Eventually the Assyrian empire weakened, and in 612 B. C.E. it collapsed and was replaced by the [neo-] Babylonian empire as the dominant power in the ancient Near East. Whereas the Assyrian empire was based in the northern part of Mesopotamia (northern Iraq), the Babylonian empire was centered in the south (southern Iraq). It was against the backdrop of power struggles among Assyria, Babylonia, and Egypt that Josiah, the king of Judah, was killed by the pharaoh Necho (II) in 609 B. C.E. at the foot of Megiddo, the Book of Revelation's Armageddon (Greek for Har [Mount] Megiddo). Josiah is a favorite of the biblical writers because he eliminated sanctuaries and cultic practices associated with other gods, and insisted on the worship of the God of Israel in the Jerusalem temple alone. According to the biblical account, Josiah's reforms were implemented after a fifth book of Moses, Deuteronomy (Greek for “second law"), was discovered during repair work on the temple.
The Babylonians soon launched a series of invasions into Judah, which culminated with the destruction of Jerusalem and Solomon's temple in 586 B. C.E. The Judahite elite were exiled to Babylonia. The year 586 B. C.E. is the watershed marking the end of the Iron Age and the First Temple period in Palestine, and the beginning of the Babylonian exile.
The Archaeology of Biblical Jerusalem (to 586 B. C.E.)
Nothing survives of Solomon's temple (the first temple), although the remains of scattered and fragmentary walls between the Temple Mount and City of David (the Ophel) might be associated with Solomon's palace complex. More substantial remains of the Bronze Age and Iron Age have been discovered around the City of David, especially on the eastern slope above the Gihon spring. The first excavations in this area were conducted from 1923 to 1925 by Robert Alexander Stewart Macalister and J. Garrow Duncan on behalf of the Palestine Exploration Fund, a British organization. Macalister and Duncan opened a trench at the crest of the hill above the spring, which is a natural high point because of the manner in which the bedrock rises toward the north. Macalister and Duncan's excavations brought to light a fortification wall with towers, which they attributed to the Jebusites because the biblical account describes Jerusalem as so strongly fortified that the Israelites were unable to take it until the time of David.
In the 1960s this area was re-excavated by the British archaeologist Kathleen M. Kenyon, who dug on the slope below the fortification wall uncovered by Macalister and Duncan. Kenyon demonstrated that the fortification wall and towers date not to the time of the Jebusites (Bronze Age) but to the Second Temple period (after 586 B. C.E.). Furthermore, Kenyon's excavations revealed that the fortification wall sits atop a massive stepped stone structure (glacis), which she assumed was intended to buttress the fortification wall. Kenyon therefore dated the glacis to the Second Temple period as well. In the 1970s this area was re-excavated by the Israeli archaeologist Yigal Shiloh (Area G in his excavations). Shiloh uncovered more of the glacis, revealing that Israelite houses of the eighth and seventh centuries B. C.E. (or perhaps earlier) had been built on
2.4 Plan of Jerusalem at the end of the First Temple period. From E. Stern (ed.), The New Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations in the Holy Land (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993), vol. 2, p. 707. By permission of Hillel Geva and the Israel Exploration Society.
2.5 Diagram of Area G showing the stepped stone glacis and houses. Reconstruction by Leen Ritmeyer ©.
Top of the lower part of the glacis. Shiloh's discovery provides an eighth-century terminus ante quem for the glacis, meaning that the glacis must have been built before the eighth century. Therefore, the glacis does not date to the Second Temple period and could not have been intended to buttress the fortification wall above, as Kenyon thought. To summarize, various excavations at the crest of the hill above the Gihon spring have brought to light the following remains: (1) a fortification wall with towers; (2) a massive stepped stone structure (glacis) on the slope below the wall; and (3) Israelite houses of the eighth and seventh centuries B. C.E. on top of the lower part of the glacis.
Shiloh's excavations indicate that the glacis was built first. By the eighth and seventh centuries B. C.E., houses were built on top of the glacis. In 586 B. C.E. the houses and other structures in this area were destroyed by the Babylonians. In the Second Temple period the fortification wall and tower were built at the crest of the hill, with no direct relationship to the glacis. But if the glacis was not built to buttress the fortification wall and towers that Macalister and Duncan found, what was its purpose? Presumably it buttressed some monumental structure that stood in the area above prior to the eighth century. This area would have been the acropolis — that is, the natural high point — of the City of David before
Solomon built a new palace and the temple on the Temple Mount farther to the north. In other words, the area above the glacis must have been the citadel of the city in the time of the Jebusites and David. In fact, potsherds found among the stones of the glacis and in the fills inside it suggest that it was built at the end of the Late Bronze Age or in the Early Iron Age.
Recent excavations by the Israeli archaeologist Eilat Mazar in the area above the glacis have brought to light the remains of a large stone building that she identifies as the palace of David. If Mazar is correct, her discovery would support the traditional understanding of the biblical account by demonstrating that monumental architecture existed in Davidic Jerusalem, suggesting that David was more than merely a tribal leader of a minor chiefdom. Mazar's discovery has generated controversy not only because of its implications but also because some scholars point to a lack of secure evidence for dating the structure to the time of David (ca. 1000 B. C.E.), as in many cases the connections between the walls and the excavated floors (with associated pottery) were not preserved. Furthermore, some archaeologists, such as Israel Finkelstein, argue that Iron Age pottery types have been dated too early by as much as 50 to 100 years, not only in Jerusalem but elsewhere around the country. For this reason, Finkelstein and others claim that buildings and other remains at sites around the country that have been attributed to David and Solomon should instead be dated to the ninth century. Radiocarbon dating of organic remains found with pottery in Iron Age levels has yet to resolve this debate to the satisfaction of either side. Perhaps the eventual employment of other techniques, such as rehydroxylation (see Chapter 1), will provide more definitive answers.
The eighth - and seventh-century B. C.E. houses that Shiloh discovered on top of the glacis represent a common Israelite type called a four-room house. This type is so called because the ground floor plan typically is divided into three long (parallel) spaces, with a short space running along the width at the back. The three long spaces consisted of a central open courtyard with pillared porches on either side. Animals could be stabled in the porches, and the courtyard was used for cooking, spinning and weaving, and other work. The room at the rear of the house was used for storage. The sleeping quarters were upstairs, away from the noise, dirt, and animals on the ground floor, accessed by a staircase abutting the outside of the house.
One of the four-room houses that Shiloh excavated yielded fragments of wooden furniture that was burned in the Babylonian destruction of 586 B. C.E. Another house — the most complete one — was dubbed by Shiloh “the house of Ahiel" because this name is mentioned in an inscription on an ostracon (inscribed potsherd). Nevertheless, we do not know whether anyone named Ahiel owned or lived in this house. Large numbers of Judean pillar figurines, consisting of simple clay cylinders depicting women cradling their breasts, were also discovered in the City of David. These figurines, which are found at Israelite
2.6 Bulla of Gemaryahu, son of Shaphan. Courtesy of Zev Radovan/BibleLandPictures. com.
Sites around the country, resemble the fertility goddesses worshipped by other ancient Near Eastern peoples. Their discovery at Israelite sites might illustrate the adoption of the type of foreign cultic practice that was condemned by the prophets.
Another four-room house excavated by Shiloh — the “house of the bullae" — is so called because it yielded a cache of 51 bullae (singular: bulla), which are small clay lumps used to seal documents and containers. As there were no envelopes in antiquity, documents were rolled up and tied with string (or similar material). Documents and containers were sealed by placing a lump of raw clay over the string and making an impression with a ring or pendant that bore the owner's name or personal symbol. To open the document, the seal had to be broken by removing the lump of clay. Bullae are rare finds because unfired clay turns back into mud. The bullae found by Shiloh were preserved thanks to the Babylonian destruction of 586 B. C.E., which burned the archive of documents originally stored in this house but fired the clay sealings. These bullae are important because they have a documented and securely dated archaeological context, whereas many of the ancient bullae in museums and private collections were purchased on the antiquities market and come from illegal excavations.
The bullae that Shiloh found are impressed with personal names, presumably of the owners of the seals. As is still common in many parts of the Middle East today, ancient Jerusalemites did not have a first name and last name but instead were identified as someone's son or daughter. This is reflected in the formula that appears on the bullae found by Shiloh: “belonging to X son of Y." One typical example reads “belonging to 'Azaryahu son of Hilkiyahu," which, like many of the names on the bullae, contains the theophoric suffix —yahu (from YHWH). Although most of the names are known from the Hebrew Bible, in most cases it is impossible to determine whether they are the same individuals who made the impressions on the bullae, because these were common names in seventh-century Judah. However, at least one bulla bears a name that is so unusual, it almost certainly is the same person mentioned in the Hebrew Bible: “belonging to Gemaryahu son of Shaphan." Gemaryah[u] son of Shaphan is mentioned in Jeremiah 36:10 as a scribe in the court of Jehoiakim the king of Judah (the son of Josiah), who reigned from ca. 609 to 598. A scribe is just the sort of person we would expect to seal documents, and the timing corresponds well with the archaeological evidence, because the “house of the bullae" was destroyed in 586 B. C.E.
The Water Systems of Biblical Jerusalem
Access to the Gihon spring was closely connected with the fortification system. If the wall that Macalister and Duncan uncovered on the crest of the City of David dates to the Second Temple period, where were the fortifications of the Bronze Age and Iron Age city? The excavations of Kenyon and Shiloh brought to light the remains of walls dating to the Middle Bronze Age and the Iron Age II about midway down the eastern slope. The placement of fortifications at this spot seems to make good topographic sense, as it leaves space for building inside the city wall while raising the defenses above the floor of the Kidron Valley. Because this arrangement left the Gihon spring outside the wall, however, it meant that in times of war or siege Jerusalem's inhabitants had to risk their lives to obtain water. Because of this problem, over the course of the Bronze Age and Iron Age, Jerusalem was equipped with three different water systems, which are now called Warren's Shaft, the Siloam Channel, and Hezekiah's Tunnel.
World History
