Posted on 12/04/2024 12:42:58 PM PST by SunkenCiv
Archaeologists from the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) and Tel Aviv University have discovered a large 30 metre wide moat that separated the City of David from Temple Mount.
Excavations in the Jerusalem Walls National Park revealed a massive impassable channel up to 9 metres deep by 30 metres wide.
Archaeological evidence indicates that the moat was cut when Jerusalem was the capital of the Kingdom of Judah. At this time, the moat would have separated the southern residential part of Jerusalem from the upper city, where the palace and temple were located...
The exact date the moat was cut is inconclusive, however, most significant construction plans and quarrying in Jerusalem date from the Middle Bronze Age, around 3,800 years ago.
Dr. Yiftah Shalev from the IAA, said: "If the moat was cut during this period, then it was intended to protect the city from the north – the only weak point of the City of David slope. Either way, we are confident that it was used at the time of the First Temple and the Kingdom of Judah (9th century BC), so it created a clear buffer between the residential city in the south, and the upper city in the north".
(Excerpt) Read more at heritagedaily.com ...
Sources : Gadot, Y., Bocher, E., Freud, L., & Shalev, Y. (2023). An Early Iron Age Moat in Jerusalem between the Ophel and the Southeastern Ridge/City of David. Tel Aviv, 50(2), 147–170. https://doi.org/10.1080/03344355.2023.2246811Image Credit : Eliyahu Yanai, Eric Marmur, and Meir Ganon
That’s 98½ feet wide by 29½ feet deep, for perspective.
I want one, but I doubt zoning would allow it.
Insurance probably would object too.
Major city, major long ago. Major WOW!
Very cool...Now for some alligator fossils...
Filling it back up would have been a pain..................
Fascinating.
.
No mention from where the necessary water was sourced.
(Although it is a formidable-enough defense without water...)
The Lion of Judah
Shall Rule from
King David’s Throne!
.
Maranatha
Tell them it’s a fish pone it’ll pass.
Danged bureaucrats!
:^)
💯.
A moat. Not to be confused with the mote mentioned in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 7.5).
Good point. Especially given that 9th century BC would have been during the Greek Dark Age cooling period. If that was anything like the two more recent cooling periods, then among other problems it had less predictable rain patterns. The Dark Age and Little Ice Age cooling periods often had droughts followed by gully washers.
Like fences, moats make good neighbors.
We have bad neighbors everywhere.
(After the barbecue they helped him fill it in.)
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