Archeology and Jerusalem : where was the City of David ? (2)

Tweet

In 2011, the Professor Israel Finkelstein and two other members of the Tel Aviv University, Ido Koch and Oded Lipschits, hypothesized in an article that I link, that the first city was not in Silwam and suggested another emplacement. They have many arguments against Silwam, the strongest one for me is that «there is no parallel to a town built on the lower slope of a ridge, dominated by higher grounds immediately outside its walls.» Anybody can understand that a town built like this cannot be defended, and nobody would have done it in a period like the Bronze Age where wars were common. Yup, walls are more efficient at the top of a hill/mount than in a plain surrounded by high hills. They «suggest that the Middle Bronze city was located on the supposed mound under today’s Temple Mount» (...) «the city of this period could have stretched over a bigger area, emprising both the Temple Mount and the north-center sector of the City of David». However, this scenario offers several difficulties : the city would be the largest known for this period (why not ?), not a fortification has been found yet (more embarrassing), and «Middle Bronze finds are absent from the north of the City of David». This one is a critical flaw if you ask me, but what we are looking for when it comes to king David is Iron Age I/IIA. Briefly, the Late Bronze City was on the mound under Temple’s Mount, and an ephemeral presence is attested in the City of David. During Iron I and Iron IIA(here we are) the activity intensified near the spring but «the main settlement, which was probably fortified by a massive wall (...[during IA IIA]) was still located on the Temple Mount.» Jumping to the conclusions : «The original mound of Jerusalem (...) was boxed in under the Herodian platform in the late first century B.C.E. This theoretical mound could have covered a significant area of ca. 5 hectares (...). It was probably fortified in the Middle Bronze Age, and again in the late Iron IIA in parallel to the fortifications of important towns in the countryside of Judah(...).» As you see, this is only an hypothesis involving a lot of supposition, and every early remain on this mound has been destroyed by the levelling done for the Herodian platform during the 1st C BC. Anyways, it would be impossible to excavate on this place for a good reason : the Temple Mount has another name for the Muslims, it is the Haram esh-Sharif, and it hosts several mosques and minarets. So, to respond to the question : «Where was the City of David ?», if we follow Professor Finkelstein, it was under what is today the third holiest site in Sunni Islam, after Mecca and Al Madina. Spicy, isn’t it ?