Jerusalem Archives - Page 129 of 198

Proposals for Mysterious Marks in City of David

More than 20,000 people have offered suggestions as to the purpose of the mysterious marks recently uncovered by archaeologists in Jerusalem. From the Jerusalem Post:

Last week, Ir David Foundation head archeologist Eli Shukron told reporters he was so puzzled by the shapes – three V’s about 50 cm. long and 5 cm. deep – that he couldn’t begin to guess their function. The figures were found in a room near a spring, an important ritual area for the ancient city.
But Shukron’s bewilderment hasn’t stopped people around the world from offering their conjectures. Among the most interesting ideas: a torture device, drainage for ancient urinals, the original McDonald’s sign, an abbreviation for “veni vidi vici” (Latin for “I came, I saw, I conquered”), a footprint from King Solomon’s pet dinosaur, molds for smelting iron to make tools, the Trinity, a representation of mountains or the symbol for water, signs to the exit, an alien cryptogram, or support for a wooden structure.
Or perhaps, as one reader commented, “3,000 years ago, a worker said to his buddy, ‘I know how to drive archeologists crazy…’”

The marks remind me of preparation to cut a board. If these engravings are directly above Hezekiah’s Tunnel (and I don’t know that they are), I’d surmise that the outer arrows mark the edges of the cutting and the middle one marks the center point.

The full story is here. You can read the 20,000 comments and make your own here.

HT: Joseph Lauer

Tagged Discoveries, Jerusalem

Mughrabi Bridge Ordered Closed

Jerusalem’s city engineer has ordered that the only access route for non-Muslims to the Temple Mount be closed immediately. The Western Wall Heritage Foundation has one week to submit objections. Haaretz reports:

Jerusalem municipality officials stressed that the wooden bridge poses a severe security threat since it is highly flammable and in danger of collapsing. They warned that if a fire breaks out it could spread to the Temple Mount.

I can’t help but thinking that this is a political move, not primarily an issue of safety. The bridge has been made of wood since it was constructed and did not become “highly flammable” yesterday. As for a fire spreading to the Temple Mount, the doors at the gate might burn, but everything else in the area is made of stone. In other words, there seem to be other reasons for this urgent order. Of course, is there anything in Jerusalem that is not political? Yet the news reports make no such suggestion, so it seems worth pointing out to those less familiar with the situation.

A brief review of recent history of access to the Temple Mount may be helpful:

Sept. 2000 – Muslims close access to Temple Mount and its shrines to all non-Muslims.

Aug. 20, 2003 – Israel re-opens the Temple Mount to tourists over Muslim objections (photos here). Shrines remained closed.

Feb. 14, 2004 – The earthen ramp to the Mughrabi Gate collapses after a snowstorm (photos here).

Mar. 2005 – A wooden bridge is constructed to permit access to the Temple Mount.

Jan. 2007 – Excavations begin on the earthen ramp (photos here). Muslims protest after being told by
their leaders that the Temple Mount is being undermined. Israelis halt the excavation in June.

Mar. 2011 – Construction of a new bridge is authorized by an Israeli judge.

June 2011 – Israel delays construction of a new bridge until September.

Oct. 2011 – Jerusalem’s city engineer orders that the Mughrabi bridge be repaired or closed.

Nov. 2011 – Prime Minister Netanyahu orders that closure of the ramp be postponed.

This review excludes other relevant events, including the opening of the Western Wall tunnel, the illegal excavations on the Temple Mount, the resultant bulges on the southern and eastern walls, and the continuing political impact of these events.

Today’s story is reported by the Jerusalem Post and Haaretz. An aerial photo with the relevant sites labeled is posted here.

Tagged Jerusalem, Temple Mount

Mysterious Marks in the City of David

Archaeologists working near the Gihon Spring are confounded by a series of “V” shapes cut into the floor of a room. Archaeologists Eli Shukron and Ronny Reich date the marks to 800 BC or earlier, and they note a similar mark from the excavations of Parker, but they cannot explain the purpose of these 1.5-feet-long (0.5-m) carvings in the limestone. From the Associated Press:

Israeli diggers who uncovered a complex of rooms carved into the bedrock in the oldest section of the city recently found the markings: Three “V” shapes cut next to each other into the limestone floor of one of the rooms, about 2 inches (5 centimeters) deep and 50 centimeters long. There were no finds to offer any clues pointing to the identity of who made them or what purpose they served.
The archaeologists in charge of the dig know so little that they have been unable even to posit a theory about their nature, said Eli Shukron, one of the two directors of the dig.
“The markings are very strange, and very intriguing. I’ve never seen anything like them,” Shukron said.

The continuation of the story gives more information about the “V” found by Parker, the unique nature of the room, the standing stone found nearby, and a couple of nice photos.

The City of David Facebook page is asking readers who have seen anything similar elsewhere in the world to share their knowledge.

Tagged Discoveries, Jerusalem

New Book: Unearthing Jerusalem

Last month Eisenbrauns released a new book that looks fantastic. Unearthing Jerusalem: 150 Years of Archaeological Research in the Holy City has a rich collection of articles authored by those who know the subjects best [with one glaring exception]. I have not read the book, and will not be able to for several months, but I know that some of the readers here will want to get this on their Christmas list.

The Eisenbrauns website has the publication details, but more helpful than the two-paragraph description is the table of contents. I’ve re-formatted that below for easier reading.

It should be noted that the book is based on a conference held in 2006 and thus those looking for the latest results from excavations will want to check elsewhere.

Frank E. Peters, Where Three Roads Meet: Jewish, Christian, and Muslim Pilgrimage to Jerusalem

Part 1: The History of Research

Shimon Gibson, British Archaeological Work in Jerusalem between 1865 and 1967: An Assessment

Ulrich Hübner, The German Protestant Institute of Archaeology (Deutsches Evangelisches Institut für Altertumswissenschaft des Heiligen Landes)

Joan R. Branham, The American Archaeological Presence in Jerusalem: Through the Gates of the Albright Institute

Dominique Trimbur, The École Biblique et Archéologique Française: A Catholic, French, and Archaeological Institution

Michele Piccirillo, The Archaeology of Jerusalem and the Franciscans of the Studium Biblicum

Ronny Reich, The Israel Exploration Society

Jon Seligman, The Departments of Antiquities and the Israel Antiquities Authority (1918–2006): The Jerusalem Experience

Part 2: From Early Humans to the Iron Age

Ofer Bar-Yosef, Prehistory of the Jerusalem Area

Aren M. Maeir, The Archaeology of Early Jerusalem

Israel Finkelstein, Jerusalem in the Iron Age: Archaeology and Text; Reality and Myth
Part 3: The Roman Period

Joseph Patrich, The Location of the Second Temple and the Layout of its Courts, Gates and Chambers: A New Proposal

Doron Ben-Ami and Yana Tchekhanovets, Has the Adiabene Royal Family “Palace” Been Found in the City of David?

Ronny Reich and Eli Shukron, The Pool of Siloam in Jerusalem of the Late Second Temple Period and Its Surroundings

Zvi Greenhut, A Domestic Quarter from the Second Temple Period on the Lower Slopes of the Central Valley (Tyropoeon)

Donald T. Ariel, Coins from Excavations in the Domestic Quarter of the City of David, Jerusalem

Hillel Geva, On the “New City” of Second Temple Period Jerusalem: The Archaeological Evidence

Jodi Magness, Aelia Capitolina: A Review of Some Current Debates about Hadrianic Jerusalem
Part 4: The Byzantine Period

Oren Gutfeld, The Urban Layout of Byzantine-Period Jerusalem

Leah Di Segni, Epigraphic Finds Reveal New Chapters in the History of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in the 6th Century

Jon Seligman, The Hinterland of Jerusalem during the Byzantine Period

Part 5: The Early Islamic and Medieval Periods

Gideon Avni, From Hagia Polis to Al-Quds: The Byzantine–Islamic Transition in Jerusalem

Donald Whitcomb, Jerusalem and the Beginnings of the Islamic City

Shlomit Weksler-Bdolah, Early Islamic and Medieval City Walls of Jerusalem in Light of New Discoveries

Mahmoud Hawari, Ayyubid Jerusalem: New Architectural and Archaeological Discoveries

Robert Schick, Mamluk and Ottoman Jerusalem

One last comment: the natural choice for the presentation/article on Iron Age Jerusalem is Gabriel
Barkay. He knows the city and this period far better than Israel Finkelstein and he does not suffer from the biases that make the latter’s work unreliable. Perhaps a logistical reason made Barkay’s participation impossible.

Tagged Jerusalem, Resources

Western Wall Bridge Destruction Delayed

After the city engineer of Jerusalem demanded that the Mughrabi bridge be repaired or closed for safety reasons, Israel’s prime minister has ordered that the reconstruction of only non-Muslim access to the Temple Mount be postponed because of Muslim opposition. From the Jerusalem Post:

According to the report, work on the bridge – which received approval in March – was to have begun early Sunday morning. The initial work of demolishing the existing structure would have necessitated the deployment of large IDF and security forces in Jerusalem and around the Temple Mount, as well as stepped up army preparedness in the West Bank. Channel 2 reported that Cairo and Amman warned Jerusalem that the work would likely lead to "disruptions" in both Jordan and Egypt.
Officials in both the Prime Minister’s Office and the Jerusalem Municipality refused Sunday night to relate to the reports.
Previous work on the bridge caused widespread rioting in neighborhoods throughout the Jerusalem area and in Jordan. […] Under the plans, a permanent bridge is to be built to replace the current temporary wooden structure that has been in use since a 2003 earthquake and winter storm caused part of the original bridge to collapse. The bridge is used as the main entry point for non- Muslim tourists and security forces entering the Temple Mount.

The full story is here. Haaretz has additional details. For background, see this post from one month ago.

Tagged Jerusalem, Temple Mount

Western Wall Discovery: Follow-Up

The discovery announced yesterday was analyzed by a number of writers:
Doug Petrovich (ANE-2) notes that “it long has been accepted” that King Herod did not finish the Temple Mount project and that “all this find does is to date more precisely the building of the SW corner of the Temple Mount (to AD 17/18).”

Ferrell Jenkins observes that “we already knew” what archaeologists claim to have discovered, given the record of Josephus and John 2.

Alexander Schick provides photos of the incomplete section on the northern end of the Western Wall, suggesting that the story is sensational only because the New Testament evidence was ignored.
(Google translation link)

Shmuel Browns was at the press conference and provides his own summary. He also makes some observations and poses some questions in a comment to yesterday’s post on this blog.

The Reuters story provides one solution to the press release by suggesting that academic historians are aware of Josephus but that tour guides are not.

Leen Ritmeyer explains the phases of construction of the western and southern walls of the Temple Mount. This is a must-read for any tempted to claim that Herod did not build the Western Wall.

Ritmeyer’s expert diagrams will help you to understand even if you are not familiar with some of the terms and place names. Read it!

Tagged Analysis, Jerusalem, Temple Mount