Archaeologists say dig reshapes Roman Jerusalem
Pastor Dale Morgan
Archaeologists say dig reshapes Roman Jerusalem*
By Joseph Nasr
Reuters
Wednesday, December 5, 2007; 12:20 PM
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli archaeologists have unearthed a wall
beyond Jerusalem's old boundaries, showing the city built by biblical
King David may have been much larger than previously thought, they said
on Wednesday.
The Israel Antiquities Authority said it believed the 5-metre (16 ft)
high wall was part of a two-storey structure demolished in 70 AD when
the Romans sacked Jerusalem and destroyed the second Jewish temple built
by King Herod.
"According to our findings, ancient Jerusalem ... was much larger than
previously thought," Doron Ben-Ami of the authority told a news
conference near the excavation site.
Ben-Ami believes the structure may have been a section of a palace
belonging to Queen Helena of Mesopotamia, who converted to Judaism in
the first century AD, and left behind her kingdom in modern-day Iraq to
settle in Jerusalem.
The wall was found beneath a parking lot about 300 meters south of the
area known as the Temple Mount to Jews and al-Haram al-Sharif to Muslims.
Ben-Ami said narrow openings discovered at the bottom of the wall may
have been used by inhabitants to flee the building as the Romans smashed
it to pieces during the sacking of Jerusalem.
"We know that the structure was not destroyed by fire but it was
destroyed purposely by dismantling its walls, which were made of
stones," Ben-Ami explained.
The excavations yielded artifacts dating back to the early Islamic,
Byzantine, and Hellenistic eras, as well as the first and second Temple
periods.
The Temple Mount was the site of the ancient second Jewish temple, the
only remnant of which is the Western Wall, the holiest shrine for Jews.
(Editing by Stephen Weeks)