Exciting Finds In The City of David

One of the most popular places to visit for everyone traveling to Israel is the newly-discovered City of David archaeological site. For those who are unfamiliar with the City of David, it is located south of the Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem in the heart of the village of Silwan, and began as a small project with just a few houses in a parking lot.

In the 19th century, most of Silwan was owned and populated by Jews. When the British took over from the Ottoman Turks at the end of World War I, things became more dangerous for the Jews in Silwan as Arabs in the Old City of Jerusalem and Hebron became more violent, resulting in pogroms.

In the 1930s, Arabs started chasing Jews out of Silwan while the British soldiers looked the other way, and the Jews, not wanting to suffer the same fate as the Jews of Hebron from the massacres of the 1920s, ran away, and the Arabs took over all the homes owned by Jews.

Fast forward to the 1980s. The organization Elad was formed by a man named of David Be’eri, who took it upon himself to finally go back to Silwan and he made it his life’s mission to retrieve all those lost homes that had previously been owned by Jews.

He wasn’t able to do it overnight, but rather in bits and pieces over the years, researching and digging up documents proving the ownership rights of the Jews who had lived there and never sold their properties, and fighting the Arabs who presently live in these homes for the right to throw them out in favor of the Jewish owners of record.

As they got hold of houses, the people began renovating them with the idea of fixing them up and renting them out to Jews to bring them back into Silwan once again. During the renovations below the basements of some of these houses, major archeological finds began to emerge, which made the people realize there was a treasure trove beneath Silwan and they had only just scratched the surface. So, they brought in professional archaeologists to begin digging up all the treasures underground.

Under one house, a batch of swords was found to have come, via carbon testing, from the time of King David and thought by experts to have been used to fight wars during those years. Bits and pieces of clothing traced to the clothes worn by Kohanim were found when digging under the basement of another house, and so began the excavations of these lots, piece by piece as they retrieved more houses, dug up more lots, and connected the pieces.

In 2017, David Be’eri was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award for his dedication to the discovery and publicity of what has now become the most popular tourist site ever—the City of David, which has now been revealed as the original City of Jerusalem from the time of King David and King Solomon.

Although the excavations barely scratched the surface of what may take generations to completely unearth, some of the more recent finds include (besides the discovery of Hezekiah’s tunnel) additional staircases, a main shopping arcade and a main thoroughfare that were used by the populace back then to reach the Temple Mount, the Beit Hamikdash, including paths, tunnels, and roads connecting the staircases.

A fortress wall measuring 200 feet by 20 feet, which is thought to be part of a wall mentioned in the Tanach connecting King David’s Jerusalem to the Temple Mount, was located next to the palace of King David. Major excavations of what are thought to be the remnants of the palace of King David are a continuing project since many new and fascinating items keep surfacing as they dig deeper and deeper.

The excavations so far have unearthed ivory utensils used by the royals of that time together with artifacts that seem to be from a royal bakery stamped with writing on it that says: “for the king.”

Next to this structure, another possible find being excavated is thought to be the palace of King Solomon since they have also found many artifacts pointing to him together with stamps and other items used by those who would have served him.

There has been a steady expansion of the City of David from a humble parking lot with several houses to a major excavation site as more houses are acquired alongside the ones they have already retrieved. I for one cannot wait to go back and see what this year has uncovered in new discoveries and more undeniable proof of our historical rights to Jerusalem. And to think it all started with trying to retrieve some Jewish houses that were stolen in the 1930s! 

Anessa Cohen lives in Cedarhurst and is a Licensed Real Estate Broker (Anessa V Cohen Realty) with over 20 years of experience offering full service real estate residential, commercial and management services. She can be reached at 516-569-5007 or readers are encouraged to send any questions or scenarios by email to [email protected].