Uncovering the Walls of Zion

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As featured in the Strata section of the BAR November/December 2008 issue, the southern wall of ancient Jerusalem constructed by the Hasmoneans in the second century B.C. was recently uncovered in an excavation on Mt. Zion directed by Yehiel Zelinger and sponsored by the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA), the Nature and Parks Authority and the Ir David Foundation. This view from the south shows the excavation area at the base of Mt. Zion. The dig is part of a larger plan to preserve the area around the Old City of Jerusalem as a tourist area and develop the Jerusalem City Wall National Park.

Photo by Skyview, courtesy of the Israel Antiquities Authority

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The fortifications themselves are of typical Hasmonean construction (seen at lower right in photo). The blocks have a dressed boss protruding in the center and are laid out in a header-stretcher pattern that required no mortar. The excavations revealed a tower on this site that survived to an impressive height of 10.5 feet (3.2 m). The IAA has identified the tower as part of the “First Wall” described by Josephus in The Jewish Wars.

Located only 13 feet above this tower wall, and directly in line with it, excavators also revealed another city wall (seen at upper left in photo) dating to the Byzantine period (324–640 A.D.), when Jerusalem was a major site of Christian pilgrimage. The construction of this later wall is traditionally attributed to Empress Eudocia, who lived during the first half of the fifth century and settled in Jerusalem after separating from her husband, Emperor Theodosius II.

Photo by Tsilla Sagiv, courtesy of the Israel Antiquities Authority

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Zelinger and his team recovered numerous pottery sherds in a soil fill abutting the wall that helped them date the construction to before the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. According to Zelinger this area was probably a rubbish dump just outside the ancient city, which explains the number of broken and fragmentary vessels. This bowl fragment dates to the late Roman period (third–fourth century A.D.).

Photo by Klara Amit, courtesy of the Israel Antiquities Authority

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The location of the southern wall was first discovered in the 1890s by archaeologist Frederick Jones Bliss and architect Archibald Dickie of the Palestine Exploration Fund. Their excavation shafts had been filled in and forgotten until current dig director Yehiel Zelinger undertook the new excavation to identify and re-excavate the walls.

During the dig Zelinger found forgotten traces of the 19th-century workers in the trenches. This shoe, belonging to one of the excavators, dates to the 19th century.

Photo by Klara Amit, courtesy of the Israel Antiquities Authority

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A beer bottle from the Bliss and Dickie expedition in the late 19th century, stamped with the word “Jerusalem,” was recovered during the Mt. Zion excavation.

Photo by Klara Amit, courtesy of the Israel Antiquities Authority