Finding Jerusalem

Archaeology between Science and Ideology

Katharina Galor

• Publisher: University of California Press
• Year: 2017
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9780520968073
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Middle Eastern History

A free ebook version of this title is available throughLuminos, University of California Press's open access publishing program. Visit www.luminosoa.org to learn more. Archaeological discoveries in Jerusalem capture worldwide attention in various media outlets. The continuing quest to discover the city's physical remains is not simply an attempt to define Israel's past or determine its historical legacy. In the context of the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it is also an attempt to legitimate—or undercut—national claims to sovereignty. Bridging the ever-widening gap between popular coverage and specialized literature, Finding Jerusalem provides a comprehensive tour of the politics of archaeology in the city. Through a wide-ranging discussion of the material evidence, Katharina Galor illuminates the complex legal contexts and ethical precepts that underlie archaeological activity and the discourse of "cultural heritage" in Jerusalem. This book addresses the pressing need to disentangle historical documentation from the religious aspirations, social ambitions, and political commitments that shape its interpretation.

PART ONE

Cityscape and History

PART 1 OF THIS STUDY EXAMINES the contribution of archaeology to the evolving understanding of Jerusalem’s history and its tangible as well as intangible components. Parts 2 and 3, with their more recent and contemporary focus, will build on this foundation. Respecting the basic concerns of the discipline, especially its juxtaposition of soil, stone, and text, “Cityscape and History” also finds the roots of the stubborn entanglement of material reality, factual events, and storied heritage. It highlights the persistent interplay between archaeological practice and ideology, an increasingly powerful combination in the context of the discipline’s evolving institutionalization.

1

Boundaries, Barriers, Walls

Jerusalem’s unique landscape generates a vibrant interplay between natural and built features where continuity and segmentation align with the complexity and volubility that have characterized most of the city’s history. The softness of its hilly contours and the harmony of the gentle colors stand in contrast with its boundaries, which serve to define, separate, and segregate buildings, quarters, people, and nations. The Ottoman city walls (see figure 2) separate the old from the new; the Barrier Wall (see figure 3), Israelis from Palestinians.1 The former serves as a visual reminder of the past, the latter as a concrete expression of the current political conflict. This chapter seeks to examine and better understand the physical realities of the present: how they reflect the past, and how the ancient material remains stimulate memory, conscious knowledge, and unconscious perception. The history of Jerusalem, as it unfolds in its physical forms and multiple temporalities, brings to the surface periods of flourish and decline, of creation and destruction.

FIGURE 2. Section of Ottoman city wall, south of the Citadel. Photo by Katharina Galor.

FIGURE 3. The Barrier Wall separating two Jerusalem neighborhoods, French Hill (with mostly Jewish residents) from Issawiya (with exclusively Palestinian residents). Visible here beyond the wall are buildings in Issawiya. Photo by Katharina Galor.

TOPOGRAPHY AND GEOGRAPHY

The topographical features of Jerusalem’s Old City have remained relatively constant since antiquity (see figure 4). Other than the Central Valley (from the time of the first-century historian Josephus also known as the Tyropoeon Valley), which has been largely leveled and developed, most of the city’s elevations, protrusions, and declivities have maintained their approximate proportions from the time the city was first settled. In contrast, the urban fabric and its boundaries have shifted constantly, adjusting to ever-changing demographic, socioeconomic, and political conditions.2

FIGURE 4. Topographical map of Jerusalem. Redrawn by Franziska Lehmann, after: Vincent and Steve, Jérusalem, I, plate 1.

Israel/Palestine lies on the narrow strip known as the Fertile Crescent, at the southern end of the Levantine coast. At its center, the Judean Hills mark the dividing line between the drainage basin of the Mediterranean Sea and that of the Jordan Valley.3 Within this context, Jerusalem stands on a promontory, enclosed on either side by valleys that converge near its southernmost protrusion and continue onward to the Dead Sea. In antiquity, the settlement often functioned as the capital of the larger region.4 Geographically, this is somewhat surprising, as it was not easily accessible, and there were no simple lines of communication between the coastal region, the hill country, and the place that would ultimately give birth to the city.

Ancient Jerusalem spread over several hills or spurs (see figure 4), surrounded by slightly more elevated mountains. From north to south, the Old City is divided by the Central Valley, which separates the so-called Western Hill, or Upper City (765 meters)—now occupied by the Armenian and Jewish Quarters and Mount Zion further south (770 meters)—from the Eastern Hill, or Lower City. The latter encompasses the area of the Temple Mount, or the Haram al-Sharif (745 meters), and south of it (the Southeast Hill), the modern village of Silwan (660 meters), popularly referred to as the City of David.5 The shape of the Old City is determined on the east, south, and west by valleys and deep ravines. The eastern border is marked by the Kidron Valley, which separates it from the Mount of Olives ridge. Its western border is the Valley of Hinnom, which runs north to south, skirting Mount Zion, and then turns east along the southern border of the ancient city until its convergence with the Kidron Valley. Today, the city’s northern border has no clear-cut topographical delineation. In the past, the only morphological feature that separated the city from the northern hills was the (now filled) Transversal Valley. From the late Hellenistic period onward, the city’s boundaries spread beyond this natural feature.

During the early periods of the city’s existence, the inhabitants relied exclusively on its only perennial spring, the Gihon, located on the lower eastern slopes of the Southeast Hill. It was only when greater efficiency was achieved in the utilization of rainwater and in the diversion of distant spring sources that Jerusalem was able to expand in other directions.

ANCIENT CITY LIMITS

The city’s changing boundaries can be traced relatively accurately for most periods, as numerous sections of the ancient walls have been surveyed, excavated, and studied. Information on urban development and the city limits can also be determined by defining the location and extent of Jerusalem’s necropoleis.6 The plans in figure 5 reflect the most commonly accepted opinions on the extent of the city during the different periods of its history. Population estimates, based both on historical and archaeological evidence, range from approximately eight hundred people during the Bronze Age (3300–1200 B.C.E.) to approximately eighty thousand in the late Hellenistic period (mid-first century C.E.).7

FIGURE 5. Maps indicating settled areas throughout the periods under discussion. Redrawn by Franziska Lehmann, after: Broshi, “The Expansion of Jerusalem,” 12–15.

The earliest permanent settlements, from the Bronze Age through the beginning of the Iron Age (3300–ca. 960 B.C.E.), were located outside Jerusalem’s Old City walls on the Southeast Hill, in the area of present-day Silwan. The city’s earliest fortifications, however, were not erected until around 1850 B.C.E.8 It is commonly believed that only after the construction of King Solomon’s Temple in the tenth century B.C.E. did the city spread northward to enclose Mount Moriah (the traditional site of the sacrifice of Isaac, as mentioned in Genesis).9 Toward the end of the eighth century B.C.E., the settlement extended to the Western Hill, indicating a demographic shift, which is usually related to the destruction of numerous settlements in the Northern Kingdom of Israel by the Assyrians and the relocation of refugees in the Southern Kingdom of Judah, most of which settled in Jerusalem.10 Throughout the Babylonian, Persian, and early Hellenistic periods the city remained relatively small, not extending beyond the eastern mountain ridge. Around the second century B.C.E., the settlement spread once again to the Western Hill, which thereafter remained continuously inhabited. The city experienced significant growth during the decades prior to the destruction of the Herodian Temple by the Romans in 70 C.E., though the extent of the expansion northward is debated. According to some, the line of the northern line of fortification was where the present Ottoman wall is located; according to others, it was located significantly further north.11 From 70 C.E. onward, the area enclosed within the present-day Old City has constituted the heart of Jerusalem, with extensions toward the south (during the early Roman, Byzantine, and Islamic periods). Jerusalem’s extent during the late Roman, Fatimid, Crusader, Ayyubid, and Mamluk periods corresponded roughly to the present-day Old City walls built during Ottoman rule in the sixteenth century.

RECENT AND CURRENT BOUNDARIES

The ethno-religious partition of the Old City as originally featured on nineteenth-century maps is rooted in the Crusader period, when Jerusalem absorbed heterogeneous populations from different European and Oriental countries, who settled in clusters determined by linguistic, cultural, and religious affiliations.12 From then on, the Greek Orthodox and the Roman Catholics lived in the area surrounding the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in the northwest, and the Armenian community, near the Cathedral of St. James in the southwest. Population shifts occurred after the Ayyubid conquest in 1187, when the city was repopulated by Muslims, and once again under Mamluk rule, with growing numbers of pilgrims coming from all parts of the Islamic world.13 Since the twelfth century, most Muslims aspired to settle in the areas abutting the northern and western walls of the Haram compound. Toward the mid-twelfth century, Jews had begun to settle in the southern section of the city, just to the west of a small area inhabited by a Muslim community of North-African origin.14

Only minor demographic changes occurred during the first centuries of Ottoman rule, which from the beginning established a new administrative system, the so-called harat (neighborhoods) network (see figure 6).15 A late nineteenth-century guidebook for Christian pilgrims written in Arabic features a map of the harat division into quarters and streets, a configuration that ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Preface
• Acronyms and Abbreviations
• Important Dates
• Introduction: The Archaeology of Archaeology
• Part One. Cityscape and History
• Part Two. Cultural Heritage
• Part Three. Three Controversies
• Conclusion
• Notes
• Bibliography