City of David (archaeological site)

For the modern neighborhood, part of the Palestinian Arab village of Silwan, see City of David (Silwan).

City of David
עיר דוד‎
Stepped Stone Structure
City of David (archaeological site) is located in Jerusalem
City of David (archaeological site)
Shown within Jerusalem
Alternative nameIr David (in Hebrew)
LocationJerusalem
Typesettlement
History
PeriodsBronze Age – Byzantine period
CulturesCanaanite, Israelite, Second Temple Judaism, Byzantine
EventsSiege of Jebus, Assyrian siege of Jerusalem, Babylonian siege of Jerusalem
Site notes
ArchaeologistsCharles Warren, Conard Schick, K.M. Kenyon, Yigal Shiloh, Ronny Reich, Eli Shukron, Doron Ben-Ami, Eilat Mazar and others
ConditionIn ruins
ManagementIsrael Nature and Parks Authority, Ir David Foundation
Public accessyes
Websitehttps://www.cityofdavid.org.il/en

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.

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.

  1. ^ Jeffery Yas (2000). "(Re)designing the City of David: Landscape, Narrative and Archaeology in Silwan". Jerusalem Quarterly. Retrieved 18 April 2023. Known to archaeologists and Biblical scholars as the site of the City of David, the western slope of the Kidron valley is referred to locally by a variety of aliases, and among them "Wadi Hilwe" (in English, "Beautiful Valley") seems to prevail.
  2. ^ Ariel, D. T., & De Groot, A. (1978). "The Iron Age extramural occupation at the City of David and additional observations on the Siloam Channel." Excavation at the City of David, 1985.
  3. ^ Broshi (1974), pp. 21–26.
  4. ^ Reich, R., & Shukron, E. (2000). "The Excavations at the Gihon Spring and Warren's Shaft System in the City of David." Ancient Jerusalem Revealed. Jerusalem, 327–339.
  5. ^ a b Geva & De Groot (2017, pp. 32–49) "The prevailing view among researchers that the early city, the City of David, lay in the southern part of the eastern ridge next to the spring."
  6. ^ Gadot et al. 2023, p. 165.
  7. ^ Ronny Reich and Eli Shukron (2011). "The date of the Siloam Tunnel reconsidered". Tel Aviv. 38 (2): 147–157. doi:10.1179/033443511x13099584885268. S2CID 191493893.
  8. ^ Alon De Groot and Fadida Atalya (2011). "The Pottery Assemblage from the Rock-Cut Pool near the Gihon Spring". Tel Aviv. 38 (2): 158–166. doi:10.1179/033443511x13099584885501. S2CID 128741871.
  9. ^ Szanton, Nahshon; Uziel, Joe (2016). "Jerusalem, City of David [stepped street dig, July 2013 - end 2014], Preliminary Report (21/08/2016)". Hadashot Arkheologiyot. Israel Antiquities Authority. Retrieved 24 July 2020.
  10. ^ Galor 2017, p. 61.
  11. ^ Greenberg 2014, p. 29: "Contrast these rather upbeat examples of ethical praxis in public archaeology with the situation in the Wadi Hilweh neighborhood in Silwan, built on the ancient mound of Jerusalem, just south of the Haram esh-Sharif (Temple Mount). Here, the material remains of the past have become completely absorbed in the discourse of political power, as both the Israeli national project of unifying Jerusalem and the settler project of breaking Palestinian Jerusalem apart have joined to disenfranchise the people living above and among the antiquities. The archaeology practiced here 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. Instead of going into detail about the issues of excavation and interpretation, which I have discussed at length elsewhere (Greenberg 2008, 2009), I would like to consider if there is any way out of the predicament that is, if there is a way to conduct archaeology ethically in Silwan."


Cite error: There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or {{efn}} templates on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=lower-alpha}} template or {{notelist}} template (see the help page).