City of David (archaeological site)
The City of David (Hebrew: עיר דוד, romanized: ʿĪr Davīd), known locally mostly as Wadi Hilweh (Arabic: وادي حلوة),[1] is the name given to an archaeological site considered by most scholars to be the original settlement core of Jerusalem during the Bronze and Iron Ages.[2][3][4][5][6] It is situated on southern part of the eastern ridge of ancient Jerusalem,[5] west of the Kidron Valley and east of the Tyropoeon Valley, to the immediate south of the Temple Mount.
For the modern neighborhood, part of the Palestinian Arab village of Silwan, see City of David (Silwan).Alternative name
Ir David (in Hebrew)
settlement
Bronze Age – Byzantine period
Charles Warren, Conard Schick, K.M. Kenyon, Yigal Shiloh, Ronny Reich, Eli Shukron, Doron Ben-Ami, Eilat Mazar and others
In ruins
yes
The City of David is an important site of biblical archeology. Remains of a defensive network dating back to the Middle Bronze Age were found around the Gihon Spring; they continued to remain in use throughout subsequent periods. Two monumental Iron Age structures, known as the Large Stone Structure and the Stepped Stone Structure, were discovered at the site. Scholars debate if these may be identified with David or date to a later period. The site is also home to the Siloam Tunnel, which, according to a common hypothesis, was built by Hezekiah during the late 8th century BCE in preparation for an Assyrian siege. However, recent excavations at the site suggested an earlier origin in the late 9th or early 8th century BCE.[7][8] Remains from the early Roman period include the Pool of Siloam and the Stepped Street, which stretched from the pool to the Temple Mount.[9]
The excavated parts of the archeological site are today part of the Jerusalem Walls National Park.[a][11] The site is managed by the Israel Nature and Parks Authority and operated by the Ir David Foundation. It is located in Wadi Hilweh, an extension of the Palestinian neighborhood of Silwan, East Jerusalem, intertwined with an Israeli settlement.
Naming
The name "City of David" originates in the biblical narrative where Israelite king David conquers Jerusalem, then known as Jebus, from the Jebusites. David's conquest of the city is described twice in the Bible: once in the Books of Samuel and once in the Books of Chronicles; those two versions vary in certain details. In his Antiquities of the Jews, 1st century Jewish-Roman historian Josephus repeated the story.[12] The reliability of the Bible for the time period's history is subject to debate among scholars.
According to the Hebrew Bible, the name "City of David" was applied to Jerusalem after its conquest by David c. 1000 BCE,[13] and is not to be confused with the modern organization by the same name and which showcases relatively small excavated portions of the larger city.[14] It is first mentioned in the Hebrew Bible, in 1 Kings 11:27, in 2 Samuel 5:9, in 2 Chronicles 32:30 and in Nehemiah 3:15–16, being the name given to Jerusalem after it had been conquered by King David and who is said to have ruled in the city for 33 years.[15]
The area's majority Palestinian Arab residents refer to it as Wadi Hilweh, before it was renamed by Israeli authorities as the City of David after 1967, a name which was first applied to the site by French archaeologist Raymond Weill in 1913.[16][17] Rannfrid Thelle wrote that the title "City of David" favors the Jewish national agenda and appeals to its Christian supporters.[16]
Location
The archaeological site is on a rocky spur south of the Temple Mount and outside the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem, sometimes described as the southeastern ridge of ancient Jerusalem.[18] The hill descends from the Dung Gate toward the Gihon Spring and the Pool of Siloam.[19]
Today, the archeological site is part of the Palestinian neighborhood and former village of Silwan, which was historically centered on the slopes of the southern part of the Mount of Olives, east of the City of David. In the 20th century, the village spread west and crossed the valley to the eastern hill, the site of the ancient city.[20] Before 1948, the area was known in Arabic as Wadi al-Nabah, but was renamed to Wadi al-Hilweh after the wife of the local mukhtar who was killed in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.[20]
Finds by period
Chalcolithic (4500–3500 BCE)
Chalcolithic remains include bits of pottery found in clefts in the bedrock by Macalister and Duncan.[74] The expedition also discovered a number of places where the bedrock had been cut in various ways. These included areas where the rock had been smoothed and others where it had been cut to form flow channels. There were also several groups of small basins, sometimes called cup marks, cut into the bedrock. These are assumed to have been used for some form of agricultural processing. Macalister and Duncan speculated that they were used in olive oil processing.[74] Edwin C. M. van den Brink, who notes that similar carved basins have been found at Beit Shemesh and near Modi'in-Maccabim-Re'ut, speculates that they may have been created by repeated grinding and crushing activity, such as the grinding of grain or the crushing of olives.[75] Eilat Mazar speculates that they were used to collect rainwater.[49]
Early Bronze Age (3500–2350 BCE)
Pieces of pottery have been found.
Middle Bronze Age (2000–1550 BCE)
Middle Bronze Age Jerusalem is mentioned several times in Egyptian texts from the 19th–18th centuries BCE.[76]
Controversies
In 2018, a leaked report by the European Union cited the area as one being developed for tourism to justify Israeli settlements, considered illegal under international law, and insist on Jewish heritage at the expense of its Palestinian context.[108]
Israeli archaeology at the site has been criticized; Tel Aviv University Professor Rafi Greenberg stated that archaeological practice at the site is "completely subsumed to political and corporate motivations that are, however, largely unacknowledged by its "neutral" practitioners, leading to questionable field practice and overtly skewed interpretations of the past".[11]
In a 2015 report on Israeli archaeology, the National Academy of Sciences criticized the political use of archeology and the extensive cooperation between Elad and the Nature and Parks Authority. Elad's head, David Be’eri, declined to appear before the committee and said the report was biased against Elad.[109]
Tourism
The entire site, including the Gihon Spring and the two Pools of Siloam, is incorporated in an archaeological park open to the public. Visitors can wade through the Siloam Tunnel, through which the waters of the ancient spring still flow,[110] although the change in the water table in recent times mean that the once intermittent karstic spring is now artificially maintained through pumping.