Page 4 - Holyland Magazine - 2016 Edition
P. 4
Herodian steps leading down into the
pool complex of King Herod's Palace at
the Tower of David Museum
Spectacular Excavations Reveal
Jerusalem's Timeline
From British Mandate prison to Up an old winding spiral staircase next of Herod’s palace. Israeli archaeologists and
King Herod’s palace, the Kishle to the ancient ramparts of the Old City the museum worked together to open these
excavations bear witness to walls and the Tower of David Museum, i mportant findings to the public at the end
thousands of years of history hidden behind an unassuming metal of last year.
door of a long narrow rectangular
By Celia Theller building, spectacular excavations carried T he archaeologists dug through dozens of
out more than fifteen years ago finally reveal m eters of dirt, carefully sifting through the
4 close to 3,000 years of Jerusalem history. l ayers of earth and rubble by hand for two
years, through levels and eras of Jerusalem’s
Known today as the Kishle excavations, h istory, including a British Mandate and
they are part of the incredible riches found Ottoman period jail, the Crusader era remains
at the Tower of David Museum. In the early o f a fabric dyeing factory as described by
morning, shafts of sunlight shine through the 1 169 pilgrim Benjamin of Tudela, on to the
arched barred windows in the cavernous remains of massive walls dating back to the
structure of the old Ottoman prison onto p eriod of Herod the Great and the Second
the ancient stones of Jerusalem’s expansive Temple Period, which were part of Herod’s
history and onto the very foundations of i mposing palace, expanding some 300
Herod’s magnificent palace. meters by 100 meters. They also discovered
t he impressive main sewage system of the
The extraordinary story begins in 1999, palace, as well as parts of the Hasmonean
with an ordinary salvage excavation of the c ity wall dating to the end of the Second
building to allow the museum to open the C entury B.C. and even remains from the
space for children’s activities, and ends with F irst Temple Period from the 8th Century
the remarkable discovery of actual remains B.C. at the time of King Hezekiah.
