Israel – Israeli archaeologists say they have uncovered the oldest example of massive fortifications ever found in Jerusalem.
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The Israel Antiquities Authority says the 3,700-year-old wall was built by the ancient Canaanites as a protected passage from a hilltop fortress to a spring.
Excavation director Ronny Reich says this is the first time such significant construction has been discovered from before the time of the monumental building projects of King Herod 2,000 years ago.
The 26-foot-high wall is part of the fortification that archaeologists believe protected the city’s Canaanite residents from marauders. Reich said Wednesday a 79-foot section of the wall has been uncovered, and more likely remains hidden.
The wall will open to the public Thursday.
A Jerusalem walkway from the times of the Patriarch Abraham, protected by a wall of large rocks, has been discovered, and will be displayed to the public on Thursday.
The double-wall was uncovered in a dig run by the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) and sponsored by the City of David Association. Prof. Roni Reich of the University of Haifa, who is directing the dig together with Eli Shukrun of the IAA, told Israel National News, “Based on clay pottery fragments found at the site, it is assumed to have been built by the Canaanites some 3,700 years ago, during the period known as the Middle Bronze Age.”
The Patriarch Abraham met with “Malki-Tzedek, King of Shalem” – later known as Jerusalem – during this period, according to Biblical chronology and Genesis 14,18.
The fortifications are eight meters (over 26 feet) high, and served to protect those walking down to a spring in what is now the National Park, around and at the foot of the walls of Jerusalem. Some 24 meters of the double wall’s length have been uncovered, but it is apparently even longer, waiting to be uncovered in the future.
“This is the most massive wall ever discovered in the City of David,” Reich said. “It is tremendously large in terms of its dimensions, thickness, and size of the rocks used. It appears that they protect a walk-way used to walk down from some tower atop the hill towards the spring.”
The protected passage is designed to solve an inherent paradox in the need for a spring, Reich explained: “On the one hand, water is necessary, especially in times of crisis, but its source is located in a spring, in the lowest and most vulnerable spot in the area. Thus the need to build such a protected passage, even though it involved great effort.”
A small part of the fortifications was first discovered exactly 100 years ago by a British archaeologist, but now it has become clear that these were just part of a very large double-wall. “This is the first time we have found such massive building in Jerusalem from before the period of King Herod,” Reich said.
Fortifications on such a massive scale indicate that Jerusalem became, at this time, a city-state of its own that was able to deploy and gather the resources to build them. “A small village would not have been able to build such a structure,” Reich said.
“This discovery shows that our picture of Jerusalem’s eastern fortifications, and of its water supply, from these periods is far from complete,” Reich said. “Though so many people have dug this hill, there is still a strong chance that large architectural elements are still well-hidden and waiting to be discovered.”
The fortifications will be opened to the public for the first time on Thursday during the 10th annual City of David Research Conference. Other discoveries will be on display as well, and tours of the area – 17 different routes! – will be provided as well.
was not the akeida in the wilderness?
to #2 the akeida as sourced in genesis was at har hamoriyah or the temple mount. the makom hamikdash.
it was reached by traveling for a number of days (2 complete, and they saw the place on the third day).
take a refresher course listen well to the reading of the torah over the next few weeks and months you will hear this being read twice!!!