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0:07·[Music]
0:13·Hello and welcome back to Let the Stones Speak. I'm Brent Nagal, the host of the program. I've got to talk to you about
0:19·this amazing discovery that's just taken place in the city of David, ancient Jerusalem. Uh they have carbonated a
0:25·massive dam wall that's over 11 mters um high at the bottom of the city of David
0:31·connecting what's known as the city of David to the western hill basically bridging this this valley the Tyropoeon
0:37·valley and they've dated it to 2,800 years ago predating I think some of the
0:43·best estimates by about a hundred years um but we didn't have any conclusive evidence of the dating and so this is
0:49·really important it's it's making headlines uh all through Israel and then some other places in the world as well
0:56·just because it puts the dating of this huge construction back into the time pe period of the biblical kings. So what
1:04·we're going to do for today's program is watch a little video that the city of David and the antiquities authority
1:09·produced. Uh and then we are going to discuss the underlying research paper
1:14·about this discovery or let's just say the dating of this discovery and then
1:19·I'll share with you some my some of my thoughts about what are the ramifications in terms of uh biblical
1:25·history and archaeology that this discovery has. So, first of all, let's go to this video. Really well produced
1:31·uh by the Antiquities Authority and and the City of David Foundation alongside the Wiseman Institute. Here it is.
2:00·[Music]
2:10·[Music] forch.
2:22·[Music]
3:01·So the unique thing about our lab is that we actually come and take the samples ourselves in the field.
3:30·We took three different mortal samples from the three places and took straw out
3:36·of them. Basically, they all gave the exact same measurement, 800 BC.
3:57·We have been working in Jerusalem already more than 10 years. It was a great surprise to see that many other
4:04·buildings indeed related to water were dated at the same time. When we saw
4:11·this, a question came of course why? What happened around 800 in these
4:18·centuries? We saw and we could explain this uh huge activity in building for
4:26·water accumulation to build the relation to the climate change. And so the people
4:31·in Jerusalem understood that if I want to survive here with this very seldom,
4:37·very random climate, I need a reservoir.
5:07·So yeah, phenomenal discovery here. They've linked it to climate change uh
5:13·and some of the the um influx of drought and then also flash floods during the
5:18·9th century. And perhaps this is the reason why they decided to dam off these areas to to build a reservoir. Uh we'll
5:25·talk a little bit about that, but I mainly want to focus on the construction
5:30·um when this was constructed, when it was built, and and then some of the ramifications for dating of things in
5:37·the city of David from archaeology including the the science of carbon 14
5:42·or radiocarbon dating as well. First, let's go to the paper itself. Uh this paper was published in the PNAS journal.
5:49·It's entitled radiocarbon dating of Jerusalem Salom Dam links climate data and major waterworks. So you got a
5:56·couple of ideas here. One is we've got a huge dam. They've just been uncovering it for the past year and a half. We've
6:02·walked down there me many times and seen their um their work that they've done um
6:07·removing this what is known as the Siloam Pool. Uh that's what it's known by today. Um, and they've been removing
6:14·this and then as they got to the bottom of it, they've also done some recently done some carbon sampling as well. And
6:21·so this is part of the paper and then also they are linking it together with other dating of water features that
6:28·they've done previously around the spring itself known as the spring tower and then also a sistern more in the
6:34·northwestern part of the ancient city of David. Now this is important because they are trying to link all three of
6:39·these water installations to sometime in the 9th century and then putting it together what else happened during the 9th century well there was a change in
6:46·the climate and so on. Now I think the best part of this article is probably from the newest element that they're
6:52·adding um and that is the redating or the dating of this dam wall to 800 BC.
6:59·So you'll remember that this the period of when things are dated or when things were built in Jerusalem is a pretty big
7:06·deal. The Bible says that David was the original conqueror of Jerusalem around a thousand and then his son King Solomon.
7:12·He's the builder of Jerusalem, greatly expanding the city towards the north. And then just when the city expanded
7:19·from this eastern ridge, which includes the city of David, the Oll area, Mount Mariah, when it expands across the
7:26·Tyropoeon Valley uh towards the west to the higher western hill, we don't really
7:32·know. It's been up for debate for a long time. And so this anytime that we have
7:38·earlier dating than preconceived or earlier dating than uh the scholy opinion is I think it's important
7:46·because you are actually pushing back towards what would be more considered I would say a biblical date uh for some of
7:52·these construction projects. Let's go to the paper. This is how the paper starts.
7:57·Using wellestablished microarchchaeological sampling methods or this is the summary. We reached a
8:03·precise radio radiocarbon date of 800 BC for the Saleom Pools monumental water
8:10·dam in Jerusalem. This is a huge dam. Um my father actually did big dams like
8:16·this or even bigger ones uh between valleys and things like this. So I remember as a young a young fell going
8:22·out to work with him and he's got all the heavy machinery making these massive dam walls um to collect rainwater and
8:28·things like this. And to think that, hey, this was done and put together 2,800 years ago with these monumental
8:35·walls using ashlar stones. These are worked bedrock stones and then the whole thing being plastered. Um, it's it's
8:43·it's it's amazing. I mean, it's 19 m long as you as you uh saw. It's 11 m
8:49·high, uh 10 m wide in thickness because there's a lot of water pressure. Since
8:54·you got that much water pressure on this, it needs to be quite quite thick. Okay, back to the paper. It says, this
9:01·is how it begins. The need for water has always been a key factor for the placement of settlements in the Levant.
9:08·Thus, it's no surprise that Jerusalem's earliest settlement was built around the Guhon spring, located in the eastern
9:14·slope of the southeastern ridge, popularly known as the city of David. I don't know why this is in quotes.
9:22·City of David. It's popular to put the city of David in quotes for some reason. um known as the city of David. That's
9:28·the biblical terminology for this area. It's the city of David. So, I don't know why it necessarily has quotes. Although
9:33·several ancient water systems elements have been exposed, the lack of absolute dating and vastly different attributed
9:40·dates have made it impossible to consider them as a single system. With the new radiocarbon dates, a picture of
9:46·a well planned and executed large water system is emerging. So it's putting together these three again water system
9:51·in the north spring tower fortifications in the in the in the east and then in the south now we have this um pool. So
10:02·it's going to go through some of the dating and we'll just start with this. I think it's a little bit easier to start with the dating that they came up with
10:08·for the spring tower. Now the spring tower is huge. The stones that are used
10:13·in the Spring Tower are irregularshaped massive boulders that are put together
10:20·and these walls are just huge. Um, they were dated by the excavators themselves
10:26·to the Middle Bronze Age, too. So, we're going back 1800 BCE, time of Abraham, uh, to put a
10:35·biblical personality or a little bit thereafter. Um, and it goes all the way around the spring, the Kikihon spring
10:40·itself, which is in the valley. Not all the way in the valley, but very close. It's on the on the western side of the
10:46·Kidron Valley. Um, and then it goes around it as a defense. Now, they came
10:52·and carbonated this a few years ago, and they dated a part of it that is right on the exterior of it. Not in the guts of
10:58·it, not underneath one of these massive boulders, not in the not in the construction of it, but kind of
11:04·underneath. Is it underneath? Is it not really underneath? That's why there's some debate over this. Um the excavators
11:11·put it to middle bronze age. The construction style matches the middle bronze age. I actually don't think that
11:16·there are too many people that would redate the whole um large monumental uh
11:23·fortification around the spring out of the middle bronze age completely. Perhaps there was and indeed there most
11:29·likely was some type of um washing in or even a restoration project that was done
11:36·in the 9th century maybe going down towards well in the 9th century. I'm not saying that but I wouldn't redate the
11:43·whole thing out of the middle bronze age. I don't think uh the data calls for it. Nevertheless, from this location you
11:51·have two channels that feed water down towards where this dam is. The earliest
11:57·one of these is known as channel two. Uh this is what Nakshan Zanton there in
12:02·that video referred to. That's what he was standing in coming out of. And this is the original water channel that feeds
12:09·water down into this dam. And it's if you visit the city of David and you're
12:15·going down towards what's known as Hezekiah's tunnel um today before you
12:21·hit the water and you look to your left or your left um that's where the what's
12:27·known as the can I've got signs there for the Canaanite tunnel they call it and this used to take the water the
12:33·water used to go from the Guehon spring into a large pool that's still there
12:38·travel down channel 2 and then fill up what we know now as this pool that was
12:44·there during at the very latest 800 B.CE. Now when 100 years later King
12:52·Hezekiah is preparing for the Assyrian siege, the Bible says that he builds a conduit uh a water tunnel a tala and it
13:00·goes underneath brings the water from the spring uh to the western side of the
13:06·city. This is a tunnel that's mentioned in three different uh passages in the Bible. Isaiah, Chronicles, and Kings
13:13·talk about this waterworks that uh the prophet uh that Hezekiah did around
13:19·probably just before 700. And so when he did that, since Hezekiah's tunnel or
13:24·this tunnel that Hezekiah built is lower, then the upper tunnel channel 2 that used to feed this dam fell out of
13:32·use. So water is no longer traveling through this channel 2. It's all
13:38·traveling through what's come to known as be known as Hezekiah's tunnel. And I
13:43·don't think although there are some that would be willing or want to push Hezekiah's tunnel out of the time period
13:49·of Hezekiah, I don't believe the evidence points to that. Even the carbon sample that they took underneath the
13:54·floor of Hezek or in Hezekiah's tunnel dates to later than the construction period of this dam. I think the fact
14:01·that four samples all date to around 800 speaks to 800 being the construction
14:06·period of this um of this dam wall. Let's just get to this part in a second.
14:12·This is results and discussion. Sylom Pool Dam. We collected chunks of hard
14:18·yellowish mortar in between the outer stones of the dam's vertical part wall
14:24·001. Two separately collected uncharred straw samples were dated from the mortar
14:29·and a third sample consisted of a few charred twigs. Then from the slanting reinforcement core reinforcements core
14:38·we dated one sample of charred straw fragments from the mortar. All four
14:43·dates were very similar and could be averaged giving a calibrated combined date of basically 800. Um so very cool.
14:53·This is absolutely great because it in terms of reconstructing the history of
14:59·the area of the city of David, it means they had a massive water reservoir at least by the 8th century uh by the start
15:05·very start of the 8th century. But it also means that something else is going on here. Um it means that um Hezekiah's
15:14·tunnel, this other tunnel which makes the channel two fall out of use. channel
15:20·2 remembering remembering that this is the one that filled of course it was filled the the pool or the the dam. It
15:26·was also filled probably from runoff. Hezekiah's tunnel actually exits at a point that is further along or further
15:33·up the hill from the um from the pool itself and in up the hill inside the
15:40·Tyropoeon Valley. And so just a couple of points about this now in terms of its um
15:47·what might be let's say might because I don't it's very hard to prove all of this at this point but I think this
15:54·discovery gives a new interpretation
15:59·um or evidence for a different interpretation than what I had previously con conceived uh for the
16:05·ancient water systems of Jerusalem. If I was going to put the ancient water systems of Jerusalem together, you have
16:11·three different systems. You have the first one that's related to the middle bronze age uh that is defending or
16:17·around maybe three or four around the the spring itself. And from that you have the included in that same time
16:24·period most likely is you have the huge water uh or the large pool that is by
16:29·the spring itself and that water is retrieved from there. Later on, I don't
16:35·know exactly when, at least by 800, based on this evidence, they build a dam
16:41·uh all the way down at the bottom of the city of David and for a reservoir. Perhaps the pool that's halfway there on
16:47·the city of halfway down the city of David uh by the Guhon spring isn't large enough anymore. The city has expanded by
16:54·this time period and so they need more water collection and so they're going to build a dam and have a new reservoir
17:01·there now. And then after that time period, we have Hezekiah for some reason
17:08·deciding that I need to build a new tunnel at a huge expense and manpower
17:14·because they built this tunnel goes 1700 meters. It goes through solid rock. They
17:20·they need to do it fast. So they come at it from both from both ends. And the exit point of this is not anywhere near
17:26·channel 2. It doesn't make sense. You already have a water tunnel going called channel 2 going to this dam. So why
17:33·build another one? Now why build another one? My question would be perhaps this dam itself, this
17:40·dam that they're finding right now was not actually inside the city walls. You
17:46·remember as Hezekiah is preparing for the siege or the Assyrian invasion, the
17:51·Assyrian king Sinakaribb comes down and takes over all the different cities of Judah and he's bearing down in
17:57·Jerusalem. And then King Hezekiah prepares to bring the waters blocks. It says the upper water course of the
18:03·Guehon. 2 Chronicles chapter 32 and:e30. This is the English Standard Version. It
18:08·says, "The same Hezekiah closed the upper outlet of the waters of the Guhon and directed them down the west down to
18:17·the west side of the city of David. And Hezekiah prospered in all his works." So
18:22·this upper water course of the Guihon that is channel two most likely and that
18:27·flowed down to this dam and instead and which is basically south and a little
18:32·bit to the west of where the Guhon spring is. And this is saying that no he brought it not through this town
18:39·channel. He blocked that channel and the way he block it is just make a make another tunnel with lower elevation to
18:46·force the water to go through there. gravity. We'll make sure it goes through that one and bring it to an outlet that
18:52·is further up on the Tyropoeon Valley and more in the western side of the city.
18:57·And so that's what it says here that he succeeded in doing this. And then of course at in Hezekiah's tunnel, you also
19:04·have this beautiful inscription at the very end of it which talks about how these teams and it's written in in
19:09·perfect late 8th century uh PaleoHebrew writing. They came from both sides and
19:14·you know they got to the to the point of meeting and they you know went pick against pick and you could the water
19:20·flowed and so on and you actually walk through Hezekiah Hezekiah's tunnel and you can see the place at which they met
19:26·where the carving from one side looks this way and the coming from the next side looks that way and then there's a
19:31·little dip the only place there's a dip in the whole of Hezekiah's tunnel for 1700 ft is right where they met matching
19:38·perfectly the the inscription uh that's currently in the museum. museum uh in Istanbul.
19:44·So if what this means is if if Hezekiah is preparing for the siege blocks off
19:50·the one channel. Now why does he block off the one channel if you go to um
19:55·further beginning on this in this chapter it says this in 2 Chronicles 32
20:00·and:e3 says he uh he planned with his officers and these mighty men how to
20:05·stop the water of the springs that were outside the city and they helped him. Now, does this mean all the springs
20:11·outside of Jerusalem? I mean, the theme of this chapter is about the preparations for the siege of Jerusalem.
20:17·And so, uh, I'm not sure. Maybe it just just relates to Jerusalem. Maybe it relates to more. However, by the end of
20:23·it, it does talk about him blocking a spring so that water comes into the
20:28·city, into the western side of the city. Uh verse uh the next verse, verse four
20:34·says, "And a great many people were gathered and they stopped all the springs and the brook that flowed through the land." It seems again
20:40·they're not blocking the Jordan. They're not blocking another stream. It seems this is talking about the stream that
20:46·the brook or the stream that came uh from the Guhon perhaps
20:51·uh they stopped all the springs and the brook that flowed through the land, saying, "Why should the kings of Assyria come and find much water?" much water.
20:59·They're going to find much water. But we've got to stop them from finding much water. And then it says uh then Hezekiah he set
21:06·work uh to work resolutely and built up all the wall that was broken down, raised the towers on it and so on. So
21:13·he's preparing uh for the um siege. Another passage in Isaiah chapter 22
21:20·talks about more of these preparations for the siege. Again, Isaiah is contemporary with Hezekiah. They're
21:26·existing at the same time. We found the Hezekiah buller and the Isaiah seal impression right next to each other on
21:32·the with Dr. Elot Mazar that was reported about a decade ago. Now these were two
21:38·figures that were very much together. And in the book of Isaiah chapter 22
21:45·and verse 9, it says this and this is from uh and from the English Standard Version
21:52·again. It says, "And you saw that the breaches of the city of David were many
21:57·and you collected or gathered together the waters of the lower pool." Now in
22:05·the in the book of Isaiah you have the Guehon spring is mentioned a couple of times and the water that comes from it.
22:12·Uh the earliest mention is in Isaiah chapter 8 and it says that the waters
22:18·that the people rejected the uh waters of Shiloak that flow softly. And this is
22:25·the start of the book and so this is probably before Hezekiah's channel is Hezekiah's tunnel is built. So you have
22:31·that and then as you go on this is probably channel two and they're rejecting uh those slow waters and then
22:38·you have the situation where they're building a new tunnel and you have two pools discussed a lower pool and an
22:44·upper pool one that was higher in elevation and it says you have what did
22:49·you do? You gathered together the waters of the lower pool. What is the lower pool? It seems to me that the lower pool
22:56·is this one that they just found. this one that used to have water in it. But
23:01·when Hezekiah built his tunnel, did this one continue to have water in it? That's the big question. My question would be,
23:09·is there another early pool? Let's say it's a little bit later than the 8th
23:14·century and it located further towards where Hezekiah's tunnel um ends and that
23:22·that itself was inside the city. He brought it inside the city. Otherwise,
23:27·why the need to build a new conduit if both conduits are taking water to the same old pool? It makes sense that there
23:34·were actually two. Now, if you go into to a later period, perhaps it is that they've more morphed into one. I'm not
23:41·saying that. However, it seems to me that there were two pools here located inside the the Tyropoeon Valley. One of
23:50·them was bigger. One of them was um is the one that they found and they've
23:55·dated to 800 and then perhaps a later one where Hezekiah built uh directed his
24:03·water to um it's it's hard to know for sure but I think that's what the
24:08·biblical reconstruction says. Now before the dating of this I didn't really think
24:13·about it too much. I had this question a lot of people ask me so is this the lower pool? Is this the upper pool? Is this the old pool? And I was always very
24:20·hesitant because I didn't really it was very hard for me to piece it all together. However, this one's lower and
24:28·it's older than it seems to be the pool that Hezekiah would have built um to
24:33·safeguard the waters of the Guhon and to stop the Assyrian kings from coming to get it. So what's then interesting in my
24:42·mind and I'm going far further than what they say in this paper again great work to the archaeologists great work to the
24:49·the staff of the Wisman Institute Joanna Regv Elizabeth uh Berto um with their
24:56·work here really adding to the reconstruction and the history of Jerusalem through these dates that
25:02·they've given but I'm I'm interested in you know what is the earliest possible date for this
25:09·The latest possible date we have for its construction, they just gave it to us, 800. Now, if you look in in the biblical
25:16·text, when is the uh earliest mention of a pool that would be connected to a
25:23·king? Now, there's tradition about Solomon's pools that are far later. Um,
25:30·and so they're not necessarily, I would say, bound by the text. However, if we
25:35·go back to um the book of Ecclesiastes, now this this book uh is generally
25:41·attributed to Solomon, although there's big conjecture about when everything was written down. However, it does say in
25:48·Ecclesiastes that whoever is writing this in Eccles Ecclesiastes, and I think it matches be best with the character of
25:55·Solomon, it actually talks about pools. It says this in Ecclesiastes 2:6. It
26:02·says, "I built reservoirs to water my groves." This is an individual of
26:07·flourishing trees. And so he's got flourishing trees around. I guess doesn't say Jerusalem,
26:13·but it could be. And um it's a pool that's associated with it. Now
26:20·connecting this another step, you have the book of the Song of Songs, Shir
26:25·Shirim, and the great um Gabrielle Bakai. Um probably
26:32·the best or let's say the the living archaeologist that knows the most about the history of Jerusalem. He's just come
26:40·out with a paper which discusses the early writing the 10th century date for
26:46·the the writing of the Song of Songs or we sometimes in in English Bible we call
26:51·the Song of Solomon. It's generally attributed to Solomon and that's come under attack obviously for a long long
26:56·long time that it wasn't written by Solomon. However, according to him, um, from the text itself and the historical
27:02·references and so on, it matches best with the 10th century date. And inside that, it talks about this garden where
27:09·King Solomon walked with all these fruitful trees and things like that. Um, and where was this king's garden? It was
27:15·somewhere that was going to be well watered. And so, by putting these together, and I understand this is not hard science at this time, but it's
27:22·definitely interesting to put the biblical passages together of what they found. It seems to me that there are reservoirs being built as early as the
27:30·10th century. And what they found here inside the mortar and inside the very top of this damn wall is a date that
27:37·puts it start of the ninth c end of the 9th century and perhaps even earlier. Now what would be good is if they did a
27:43·massive trench right through this damn wall. I know it's 10 meters thick and I know it's 11 m high. do a big trench all
27:50·the way down and then let's try and get some dating material from the earlier from the foundation because often times
27:56·in Jerusalem this place that's fraught with um earthquakes
28:01·um you have reconstructions being done on the same location time and time again the Milo for instance it's mentioned
28:08·Hezekiah strengthen the Milo uh it's mentioned that Solomon strengthens the Milo it's mentioned that David builds
28:14·the Malo so they're all doing construction the same place and if you would have picked off a a stone off the
28:19·top of the millow. If it is the stepstone structure in Jerusalem, maybe you'll get a date that dates to
28:24·Hezekiah's time. I'm not sure, but get into the core. And do we find something
28:30·from even earlier than the 9th century? I'm not sure. This is an archaeologist wish list right now. Um, but it could be
28:37·dating all the way back to this time period. Now, again, they have done
28:43·fantastic work on this. So pleased that we have another
28:49·monumental construction project that is dating even earlier than first um
28:57·thought. uh possible perhaps even it goes well with what the the carbon dating study that was released last year
29:04·that took dates from the very northwestern part of the city of David off the top of the ridge into the
29:10·Tyropoeon Valley again and they found a building building 100 there and they have carbon dates even though they they
29:18·kind of pushed it it's in the study towards the in their summary towards the mid-9th century their dates matched to
29:25·the late 10th century BCE And so I think you we have this wave of
29:32·dates that are coming out um be it down in the south city of David be it in the
29:37·Gavati that are pushing back these building construction projects early.
29:43·Now, one final thought is this comes up often um and this is about when
29:50·Jerusalem expanded off the eastern ridge off the city of David ridge and there is
29:57·more and more evidence to provide an early date for this. Shortly after the 10th century or perhaps in the latter
30:04·part of the 10th century, you have first construction taking place off the top of the ridge into the Tyropoeon Valley.
30:12·Maybe the city wall didn't go around it yet. Maybe the there was no city wall even around this pool until Hezekiah
30:19·well until maybe the city wall was a little bit further toward up the the Tyropoeon Valley. I'm not sure. But as
30:25·more excavation gets done and as more precise measuring of dating gets is used
30:31·and utilized, we are finding earlier dates. And that means that the whole I think western hill was probably settled
30:37·a little bit earlier than anticipated. I also think it's very important what they're doing with these calibrated
30:43·carbon dates. The reason why it's important is because often times
30:48·archaeologically the only way that we can get dating is dating through the floors, the floors of the building
30:54·itself. So you've got the wall and then you've got the stuff underneath the floor, the floor itself, and the stuff on top of the floor. And it gives you a
31:00·dating construction window for the building itself. But the problem with this is and the problem with a place
31:05·that's not destroyed often and in Jerusalem was no real destructions from the 10th to the 10th centuries till the
31:12·mass massive earthquake a couple hundred years later. And so what would be the most accurate way to date the buildings
31:20·when the floors themselves are used for hundreds of years? This is the problem with dating to the traditional way only
31:28·I would say in Jerusalem or let's say problem of utilizing only the traditional way to date buildings in
31:34·Jerusalem. Um the best way is to get into the construction materials. The best way is
31:40·get into the walls themselves. Get into the walls and that's what they've done here. I think this is opening up a great
31:47·window for more specific dating for structures in Jerusalem and hopefully we'll use more of that in the future.
31:54·But thanks very much for staying with me through this. Just a I can't wait to tour this again. I was down there about
31:59·a month ago to walk through this area. Um Nakshan was concluding a tour just as
32:06·I got there. I was still at the area working on our excavations and so I
32:11·missed the start of the tour. Um but it it is a huge
32:17·um dam project and a great contribution to the study of ancient Jerusalem. So
32:23·well done to the whole team and uh thanks very much for listening to the program. If you like what we're covering
32:28·on this program, don't forget to like and subscribe to our channel. Uh and also if you want our magazine, don't
32:34·forget to write to letters armstrongstitute.org or go to our website armstronginstitute.org
32:40·and scroll down. you'll find a place to subscribe to our free magazine on Bible
32:46·and archaeology. Thanks very much for listening.

1 posted on 09/02/2025 7:05:07 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
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To: SunkenCiv

What? They had climate change before the Industrial Age?
Does Al Gore know about this?


7 posted on 09/02/2025 8:22:55 AM PDT by smokingfrog ( sleep with one eye open (<o> --- )
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