Who divided Jerusalem in two? A massive fortification discovered in the excavations of the Givati parking lot in the city of David in the National Park that circles the walls of Jerusalem solves a 150-year-old riddle. The fortification was created by massive quarrying of the rock that created a moat – a huge trench that cut between the City of David’s extension and the sections above: the Temple Mount and the Ofel.
Perpendicular cliffs were found on both sides of the moat that could not be climbed. At first, the diggers did not understand why the rock was carved that way, but as the excavation progressed, and with the data from past excavations, it became clear that this was the northern fortification line of the lower city.
According to excavation directors Prof. Yuval Gadot from the Department of Archeology and Ancient Near Eastern Cultures at Tel Aviv University and Dr. Yiftach Shalu from the Antiquities Authority, “It is not known when the moat was first dug, but it is clear that it was used during the centuries when Jerusalem was the capital of the Kingdom of Judah – almost 3,000 years ago, starting from the days of King Josiah. During those years, it divided between the extension of the city that spread to the south and was served as the residence of the people of Jerusalem and the Acropolis – the upper city, which was where the palace and the temple were located and stood on the Temple Mount, to the north.”
Cutting the moat was a large-scale monumental operation, designed to change and adapt the natural environment to deliver a message of strength and power to visitors to the Acropolis. According to the researchers, this project, which required impressive execution skills, testifies to the power of the city’s rulers at the time when the moat was created.
Over the past 150 years, many attempts have been made by researchers and archaeologists to trace the route of the northern fortification of Jerusalem, but only now it has been revealed clearly for the first time in the excavations of the Givati parking lot in the City of David, which are managed by the Israel Antiquities Authority and Tel Aviv University, and funded by the Elad Association.
According to Prof. Yuval Gadot, “Following the dramatic discovery, we returned to the past excavations of the British archaeologist Kathleen Kenyon, who excavated in the City of David in the 1960s, in an area that is slightly east of today’s Givati parking lot. We deduced that Kenyon noticed that the natural rock slopes down northward, where it should have risen. She thought it was a natural valley, but now it turned out that she had uncovered the continuation of the moat, which was cut toward the west.”
“The connection of the two exposed sections creates a deep and wide trench that stretches across About 70 meters at least, from west to east,” he said, adding that “this is a dramatic discovery that opens up a renewed discussion of terms from biblical literature that relate to the topography of Jerusalem, such as the Ofel and the Millo.”
Dr. Shalu noted that “the date of excavation of the moat is unknown. Such significant construction and construction works in Jerusalem are usually dated to the Middle Bronze Age – about 3,800 years ago (beginning of the 2nd millennium BCE). If the moat was dug during this period, then it was intended to protect the city from the north – the only weak point of the City of David extension. We do know with confidence that it was used during the First Temple and the Kingdom of Judah (ninth century BC), so it created a clear buffer between the residential city to the south, and the upper city to the north.”
Ancient Jerusalem was built on top of a narrow and steep spur, and from there, it expanded and spread over hills and stream channels that dissected it into distinct units and made it difficult to move from unit to unit. Therefore, it is not surprising that many of the royal construction enterprises in Jerusalem are connected with the need to reshape the topography. For example, the book of I Kings (11:27) describes a project of this type by King Solomon: “The circumstances under which he raised his hand against the king were as follows: Solomon built the Millo and repaired the breach of the city of his father, David.”
Now it becomes clear that throughout the Iron Age (the days of the First Temple), the city was divided into at least two distinct parts. This was also the case in the Persian and Hellenistic periods.
