The oldest core of Jerusalem sits on a narrow ridge just south of the Temple Mount — the City of David. Excavations there have exposed a massive terraced 'Stepped Stone Structure' and an adjoining Iron-Age building, the Warren's Shaft water system, and Hezekiah's Tunnel, whose diggers left the Siloam Inscription describing the moment two teams met underground around 701 BC. Clusters of clay seal-impressions show a literate royal bureaucracy at work. It is, in stone, the fortified capital the Bible describes.
- Where it is
- City of David ridge, Jerusalem
- Scripture
- 2 Samuel 5:6-9 · 2 Kings 20:20
What the evidence confirmsA fortified, administratively organized Jerusalem existed, and Hezekiah's water tunnel and eighth-century bureaucracy are physically attested.
What it does not proveEilat Mazar's claim that the large building was 'David's palace' is contested — Israel Finkelstein and others dispute both the tenth-century date and the royal identification.
Sources & further reading