Garth Gilmour, Contributor

Gilmour

Jerusalem is a remarkable city by any standards and for archaeologists, it is a gold mine. Its foundations date back to over 7,000 years ago, when its first inhabitants settled on the slopes of the Kidron Valley close to the Gihon Spring, a perennial water supply which still gushes out of the ground today. The early settlers left few building remains; indeed, they came to live there when people in the Near East were just beginning to settle down from a nomadic lifestyle. The presence of these early people is known from their pottery, found in cavities in the bedrock where it fell and lay undisturbed for thousands of years.

Later, around 3000 B.C., more substantial permanent structures were built - rectangular single-room buildings of onebroad room with a low bench around the wall inside. Remains of this type of house, typical of the earliest phase of urbanisation in Israel, have been found on the slopes close to the spring.

City of some renown

Just over a thousand years later, Jerusalem had become a city of some renown. Still very small by any standards, throughout the second millennium B.C. it occupied a slender ridge extending south from what is today the Temple Mount, covering an area the size of three or four football fields. During this time, Jerusalem was a small but significant Canaanite city state dominating the southern central mountainous range that runs from the Negev in the south to the Jezreel valley in the north. It is mentioned in texts from Egypt early in the second millennium and later, in the 14th century, there are several letters written by its king, Abdi-Heba, to Pharaoh.

After its conquest by David around 1000 B.C., about which there is much controversy in archaeological circles, the city shows gradual growth, until in the eighth century there is a sudden surge in numbers as Jerusalem becomes a major regional capital city. A deep pool, cut into the bedrock near the spring during the patriarchal period a thousand years before, went out of use, but recent excavations have now revealed that it was transformed into a house by an enterprising resident. The four walls of the rectangular pool were reused as the walls of the house, though the floor was raised by a couple of metres from the original bottom of the pool.

Sifting through the material below the floor of the house has produced some unexpected and very interesting results. According to Roni Reich and Eli Shukron, the archaeologists in charge of the project, the finds include a large number of clay sealings, all broken, that were used in ancient times to seal both documents and goods. Many of these were stamped, some bore Egyptian writing, and others had Phoenician and Egyptian symbols including sphinxes, winged sun-discs and proto-aeolic capitals. Also in the fillwas a large quantity of fish bones, around 10,000 of them, mostly from Mediterranean species such as bass and grouper.

Jezebel

The meaning of all this is still being evaluated, but initial conclusions are most interesting and add significant light to the context of scripture. The relationship of the northern kingdom of Israel and its capital city of Samaria with Phoenicia is well documented. The stories of Ahab's marriage to the Phoenician princess Jezebel, and the Phoenician influence in the life, and especially religion, of the nation are well-known. Less well understood, however, is the relationship between the Phoenicians and the southern kingdom of Judah and its capital Jerusalem.

Reich has suggested that the many seals and fish bones may be evidence of a Phoenician administrative centre close to the pool in the ninth and eighth centuries BC, before it was transformed into a house. In 2 Kings eleven we read how the strongly Phoenician-influenced queen Athaliah, Ahab's sister or possibly his daughter (2 Kings 9:18, 26), seized the throne in Jerusalem following the death of her son, King Ahaziah, and ruled there for six years until she was overthrown. The Phoenicians were the artisans and craftsmen of this ancient world, as well as traders and merchants. Their influence in Judah is mainly attested in the biblical narrative in terms of religious corruption. Now, however, the presence of the fish bones and the sealings, along with other finds excavated elsewhere in the city, all suggest that their influence, even their presence, was felt more strongly in Jerusalem during the period of the Judean monarchy than previously thought or even suggested.

Archaeological treasure

Elsewhere in Jerusalem this month, the preservation of archaeological sites in densely built-up areas of town will be discussed at a conference. How do you preserve for posterity an archaeological treasure, while at the same time allowing for the construction that is necessary in city-centre contexts?

For years, archaeologists haveconceded to the developers either by allowing the remains of excavations to be destroyed or covered over, or sometimes by to be preserved in the basements of the new buildings. An example of the latter is in the Jewish Quarter of the Jerusalem's Old City, where priestly houses from the Second Temple period, perhaps even the house of the High Priest himself, are spectacularly preserved and displayed in the basement of a yeshiva.

Now, however, even this policy is under attack from the archaeologists, who have complained that it represents a surrender to the developers and builders, removing the finds from their natural context by blocking them off from the outside and preventing a wider perspective as more is uncovered. But what is the answer? How are we to stand in the way of 'progress'? Is there a better way of doing things? Perhaps this is little more than a reflection of modern society's sense of values, where cultural pursuits, the arts and our knowledge of the past all stand back, bowing to the advance of the economy and the pursuit of wealth.

Dr. Garth Gilmour is a biblical archaeologist based at Oxford. Send feedback to mark.dawes@gleanerjm.com