cement­tdigging !re, but it . tOUt such 'sing into 1ing over 1ch walls hundred >te much ) coordi­within a ion work ig could 1 of areas We also h we had ~ntailed.

res, or in Thile the me cases here we f

ms were with the Jmence­uled for hey will

CHAPTER ONE

THE PERIOD OF THE FIRST TEMPLE

1. Jerusalem in the Bible and in Other Ancient Sources

The distant past of Jerusalem is shrouded in mist. We know that the city's history goes back some fiv~and ~rs-on the basis of a smaJI group of pottery vessels from the Early Bronze Age I (about 3000 B.C.) found on the slopes of the hill on which earliest JenlsaremTc:JSe-:ifowevei, aichaeologrhas not yet been able to tell us whether these finds point to a proper settlement or merely to a group of squatters settled around the Gihon Spring. And the historical sources of this early period are still silent concernmg the city.

1 The first written mention of Jerusalem may possibly be contained in the docu­ments recently discovered at Tell Mardikh, ancient Ebla, in northern Syria. These clay tablets are written in cuneiform script, in a West Semitic language, and are

} ascribed to around the middle of the third millennium B.C. According to initial ·),reports, the name Salim (Jerusalem?) is found alongside several other city names,

such as Hazor, Megiddo, Lachish, Jaffa, and Ashdod, all famous in the Bible.llu1.. \n_o a~chaeological remains of the Jerusal~ha~v~me _!Qjigbtonthe ~te Itself.

Jerusalem is mentioned in ancient Egyptian sources of the 19th-18th centuries B.C. The "Execration Texts·," written in ink on potter.l'.!>owls aiia hgunnes, contain ~antation~against the enemies of Egypt. The "kings" of Jerusalem (Rushalimum) appear there among the various city rulers in Canaan and·S-yrla:Tombs and pottery from this same period (the Middle Bronze Age I) have been discovered on the slopes of the Mount of Olives, opposite the Old City. ;2()(:)0 ~Gc,

In the Bible, Jerusalem is first mentioned in the story of Abraham's meeting with "Melchizedek, king of Salem" (ffiat is, Jerusalem) ... "priest of God Most High" (Genesis 14: 18-20). According to this tradition, Jerusalem was known in the period of the Patriarchs (around the 18th century B.C.) as a city-state and the site of a cult dedicated to the deity called El-Elyon, "God Most High," who bore the epithet "Creator of heaven and earth." Remains of the eastern city watl of this period have been discovered in archaeological excavations: \.,

Evidence of Jerusalem in the days of Egyptian rule over Canaan, in the Late Bronze Age (around the 14th century B.c.), is found in letters from various. Canaanite rulers to their Egjpm{n overlords, whose capital was then at el-A:marna. Among these clay tablets, written in cuneiform Akkadian, are six from Abdi"l;leba, King of Jerusalem ( Urusalim). Archaeologists have found tombs and pottery of this period dose by the city. ·

The next chapter in the history of Jerusalem, the Israelite period, is much better documented, both in biblical sources and by archaeological evidence. The follow-

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