Part 3. The Archaeology of Jerusalem

"And Manasseh did not cast out the inhabitants of Bethshean and the cities dependent thereon, and of Faanach and the cities dependent thereon, the inhabitants of Dor and the cities dependent thereon, the inhabitants of Ybleam and the cities dependent on it, the inhabitants of Megiddo and the cities dependent on it, but the Canaanites remained to dwell in this land" (Judges 1:27); "Kings came, and fought, and the kings of Canaan fought at Panaach by the waters of Megiddo, but they received not a little silver" (Judges 5:19); "This is the decree of the tax which King Solomon imposed to build the temple of the Lord, and his house, and Millo, and the wall of Jerusalem, Hazor, and Megiddo, and Gazer... And Solomon built Gezer, and lower Bethoron, and Balath, and Fadmor in the wilderness. And all the cities for the stores that Solomon had, and the cities for the chariots, and the cities for the cavalry, and all the things that Solomon wanted to build in Jerusalem, and in Lebanon, and in all the land of his dominion" (1 Kings 9:15; 17-19); "Ahaziah king of Judah, seeing this, ran along the road to the house in the garden. And Jehu pursued him, and said, Strike him also in a chariot. It was on the hill of Gur, which is near Yvleam. And he fled to Megiddo, and died there" (2 Kings 9:27); "In his days Pharaoh Necho king of Egypt went against the king of Assyria to the river Euphrates. And king Josiah went out to meet him, and he put him to death in Megiddo, when he saw him. And his servants brought him dead out of Megiddo, and brought him to Jerusalem, and buried him in his tomb" (2 Kings 23:29-30). "And I saw coming out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet, three unclean spirits like frogs: These are spirits of devils, working signs; they go out to the kings of the earth of the whole universe, to gather them together for battle on that great day of God Almighty... And he gathered them together to a place called Armageddon in Hebrew" (Revelation 16:13-14, 16). Megiddo is the only place in Israel mentioned in the sources of all the great powers of the ancient Near East. It is natural that this city is considered as the most important monument of biblical times in the territory of Israel. Megiddo existed continuously for six millennia, approximately 7000 to 550 BC, and was periodically inhabited in the following centuries. The reason for its longevity was its unique location in the Valley of Jezriel, at the narrowest point of the ancient road that connected Egypt with Syria, Anatolia and Mesopotamia. The city was the scene of several battles that sealed the fate of all of Asia west of the Euphrates. Surrounded by powerful fortifications, equipped with a sophisticated, well-thought-out water supply system, decorated with magnificent palaces and temples, it was one of the largest cities in Canaan and Israel. Already in the middle of the 4th millennium BC, Megiddo began to dominate the surrounding countryside. In its second half, the settlement occupied an area of about 50 hectares and was one of the largest in the Levant. At the site where powerful fortifications of the Early and Middle Bronze Ages were discovered, archaeologists discovered the remains of temples that made up the famous temple complex of Megiddo. It turned out that the earliest sanctuary consisted of two overlapping temples, which dated to the second half of the 4th millennium BC. Massive walls built of partially worked stones with bricks in the upper part date from the same time. The size is amazing - the length is about 50 m, the preserved height is about 2 m, and the thickness is up to 4 meters! The corridors between them were filled with animal bones, apparently the remains of sacrifices made on the altar. If so, then the walls enclosed a sacred site, the temenos of some very large temple. An unexpected find was made inside it. These were twenty Egyptian vessels made in... around Megiddo! It turns out that even then Egyptian merchants visited such a remote territory and did not hesitate to bring sacrificial offerings to the temple of the local Canaanite deity. This picture shocked many Egyptologists. In the II millennium BC, the city became the center of the Egyptian administration in Canaan. When the Canaanite cities rebelled against the power of the pharaohs, they gathered in Megiddo to give battle. Thutmose III, however, took the rebels by surprise, choosing the most dangerous route to attack through the narrow passage of the Aruna. After the victory under the walls of the city and the capture of rich booty, the Egyptians besieged it for another seven months. Having captured Megiddo, the pharaoh included Canaan as a province in the empire. From the XIV century BC, six letters of King Megiddo Biridia to Akhenaten have been preserved. These documents, discovered in the famous Tell Amarna archive of the Egyptian capital, show that Megiddo remained one of the most powerful city-states in Canaan. Magnificent ivory items found in the palace of the Late Bronze Age indicate the wealth of the city, its extensive cultural contacts. By the X century BC, Megiddo had become the center of the royal province of the United Monarchy of the state of Solomon. According to the Bible, his reign must have left a noticeable mark on the architectural appearance of the city. However, there are heated debates among experts regarding both the nature of the Israeli state in the era of the "United Monarchy" and the monuments associated with it. So, what is considered the city of Solomon, and what buildings of Megiddo are associated with it? At the heart of the discrepancies is the unfortunate fact that there is not a single dating find in the layers of Israeli settlements from the twelfth to the eighth centuries B.C.E. And this epoch, by the way, included not only the time of David and Solomon, but also a significant period of the first Iron Age and the entire history of the Northern Kingdom of Israel. In the pitch darkness of four centuries, the dating of Israeli antiquities of the 10th-9th centuries BC was based on the monuments of Megiddo and Philistine bichrome pottery as early as the 1920s. In one of the sections of the city, in the so-called layer IV, archaeologists excavated an open large building with stone pillars. Since 1 Kings 9:15,19 mentions Solomon's construction in Megiddo, and mentions "cities" for horsemen and chariots, the conclusion suggested itself: the building was nothing more than stables. In the 1960s, however, one of the most prominent Israeli archaeologists, I. Yadin, proved that it dates back to a much later time. He placed the city of Solomon in the preceding layer (the so-called VA – IVB) with palaces made of hewn stone, as well as characteristic gates. Their similar layout at Megiddo, Hazor, and Gezer, in his opinion, testified to a single plan drawn by the king's architects. However, as it turned out, the gate is not an option. Soon another Israeli archaeologist Ussishkin found out that they were built in Megiddo later. In addition, similar ones were found in Lakish, Tell Ire, and... Philistine Ashdod, which was outside the borders of Solomon's state. No less problems arose with dating according to the ceramics of the Philistines. According to the theory of Alt and Albright, Ramesses III settled them on the southern coastal plain of Canaan shortly after the victory won in 1175 BCE over the Sea Peoples. Since bichrome ceramics existed for a long time, it was dated to the XII-XI centuries. The overlying layers were attributed to the X century. The tension of such a chronology was obvious, but it was only recently refuted by Israel Finkelstein. He drew attention to the fact that early monochrome Philistine pottery was never found in the Egyptian fortresses of the region, which existed during the reign of the pharaohs of the XX dynasty Ramesses III and Ramesses IV until 1135 B.C. In turn, the so-called Egyptized pottery, characteristic of all settlements in southern Israel during the XX dynasty, was never found together with monochrome Philistine pottery. It remained to be assumed that the Philistines settled in southern Canaan after the collapse of Egyptian rule. In this case, later bichrome vessels were used in the 11th and early 10th centuries, and the historically next layer in Megiddo, the so-called VIA, dates back to the mid-late 10th century B.C. This was the time of Solomon's reign. The decisive confirmation was given by the radiocarbon analysis of the wooden structures that died in the fire of the terrible fire. It turned out that the beams of the ceilings were cut down between 1000 and 940 B.C. In this layer, archaeologists discovered a number of monumental stone buildings of King Solomon. But, alas, neither stables nor palaces of hewn stone had anything to do with it. In 925 BC, Megiddo was taken by Pharaoh Shoshenq. This is reflected in the famous "Stele of Shoshenq" found here and the inscriptions of the Egyptian temple in Karnak. The next stage of the city's life is associated with the Northern, Israelite Kingdom. Its rulers of the Omria dynasty rebuilt the fortress according to a well-thought-out plan. The palaces, water systems and fortifications of Israel's Megiddo are considered some of the best architectural structures of this time in the Levant. The most impressive are the remains of the water system that have survived to this day. The shaft, punched into the rock to a depth of 36 meters, connected to a 65-meter tunnel that led to a spring outside the city walls. In the middle of the 8th century BCE, the Assyrian king Tiglath-pileser III seized the surrounding territories and made the entire region a province, the center of which was Megiddo again. After the fall of the Great Assyrian military power, King Josiah of Judah, known as a religious reformer, led his troops to Megiddo to stop the army of the Egyptian pharaoh Necho, who was rushing to the aid of the Assyrians. (2 Kings 23:29) The strategic importance of Megiddo and the history of this place as an eternal battlefield between different peoples are reflected in the biblical name "Armageddon", which translates as "Hill of Megiddo". According to the Apocalypse, it is here, after the end of the world, that the decisive battle between the forces of God and the devil will take place.

City and fortress

The history of Old Testament Jerusalem can be divided into two periods: the Canaanite-Jebusite and the Israelite, including the epochs of the United and Divided Kingdoms. The settlement arose on one of the hills in the southeastern part of the modern city. There, archaeologists discovered rock burials dating back to the end of the IV - beginning of the III millennium B.C. The first mention of Jerusalem is contained in ancient Egyptian "curse texts" dating back to the XIX-XVIII centuries B.C. These were hieroglyphic inscriptions with the name of the cursed enemy on small statuettes of captives or vessels. At the same time, burials at the foot of the Mount of Olives and the remains of a wall in the area of the Gihon spring date back. In these arid places it was the only one, and its name (from Heb. "Giha" - "eruption") was obtained from the fact that the water in it did not flow in a steady calm stream, but erupted from time to time. It came to the surface at the foot of a hill in the valley of the Kidron stream. The early settlement was believed to be located on the top and slopes of the hill, which created problems with drinking water in the event of an attack by enemies, who could easily cut off the city from its only source. Another major drawback from the point of view of defense was the openness of the southern direction, not protected, like all others, by natural borders. This problem has become eternal for Jerusalem, and it is not for nothing that the prophet Jeremiah declared: "From the north there shall be a calamity upon all the inhabitants of this land" (Jeremiah 1:14). Who were the inhabitants of the early city? There is no direct answer to this question. However, the Book of Genesis (14:18-20) tells how the king of Salem, who was also a priest of the supreme God, Melchizedek, blessed the biblical patriarch Abraham by bringing him bread and wine. There is no doubt that Salem is Jerusalem. However, to what time does this fragment belong? Since no other news has survived of either Abraham or Melchizedek, the reliability of this information seemed very little until recently. However, the work of recent years has led to truly sensational results. Israeli archaeologist Ronnie Reich, who studied the underground tunnels of the time of King David, concluded that they were built almost 800 years earlier than expected. That is, even at the time of the Canaanite-Jebusite settlement, the Gihon spring was located within the city. This was evidenced by the location of the tunnels and the newly opened walls. This means that the territory of the early city covered an area almost twice as large! So early Jerusalem was not a small run-down village, but a large city with a developed communications system. A direct consequence of the opening of the Reich was... political scandal. Upon hearing about the sensational results of the study, one of the members of the Israeli Knesset, Taleb al-Sana'a, an Arab by nationality, demanded parliamentary hearings. He suggested that lawmakers officially record that it was his ancestors, the ancient Canaanites, and not the Israelites, who built the city on the site of today's Jerusalem. In response to this "provocation", the leaders of radical Jewish religious parties took a harsh position. They understood where their colleague was leading, and their indignation knew no bounds. Poor Reich was to blame for everything. He got it for... belittling the role of King David in world history. Moreover, it was claimed that the scholar was grist to the mill of the revisionists of Jewish history and the enemies of Israel. The Reich could only shrug his shoulders. However, the results obtained by him are still waiting for a comprehensive check. The following reliable information about the existence of Jerusalem dates back to the XIV century BC and is associated with the world-famous "Tell Amarna archive" - the correspondence of the Egyptian pharaoh Amenhotep IV (Akhenaten). It was discovered in the place of "Tell Amarna", which hid the remains of Akhetaten, the Egyptian capital of that time. Six letters from this archive belonged to the governor of Jerusalem, Abdi-Heb. From them it turns out that Jerusalem, which was under Egyptian rule, was going through hard times. Abdi-Heba tearfully asked Pharaoh Akhenaten to send troops. "And if there be no army, then the lands and the rulers of the cities will depart from the King. Look at the country (city-state) of Yerushalayim, it was not my mother or my father who made me what I am: the mighty hand of the King gave me [him]. Malkiulu and the sons of Labaya gave the country of King Aphra. O King, my lord, you will see that I am right about the Nubians; let the Tsar ask the governors whether the house is strong. They plotted [to commit] a serious crime: they (the Nubians) took their weapons and climbed up to the pillar of the roof [of the house]. And let the King send an army into the city (Yerushalayim). Let the King take care of them, and all the lands will be gathered under their rule. And let the king ask for much bread for them, much oil, and much clothing. Even before the King's viceroy came to Yerushalayim, Adayah left with the army that the King had sent. Let the King know [about it]! Adaya said to me, "Listen, let me go! Do not leave it (the city)." This year the army went to me and the governor went here. My King! I sent caravans to the King my lord soldiers, 5000 shekels of silver and 18 guides of the royal caravans. [However] they were robbed in the Ayalon Valley. Let the King know, my lord, that I will not be able to send another caravan to the King this year. Know, my Lord! The king has established himself in Yerushalayim forever, and cannot leave the city of Yerushalayim." There is practically no reliable information about the fate of the city in the next four centuries. The only source for Jerusalem in the fourteenth and early tenth centuries is the Torah, the data of which are extremely contradictory. In the 10th chapter of the Book of Joshua, it is said that King Adonizedek of Jerusalem was defeated in battle by Joshua, but not a word is said about the capture of the city itself. In the Book of Judges (1:8) it is said: "And the children of Judah fought against Yerushalayim, and took him, and smote him with the sword, and set the city on fire." Since the book describes the wars of the Israelites after the death of Joshua, it turns out that the capture of Jerusalem took place later. Moreover, the Book of Judges (1:21) attributes the unsuccessful march on Jerusalem to the tribes of the tribe of Benjamin, while the Book of Joshua (15:63) clearly speaks of the tribes of the tribe of Judah trying to capture the city. The Israeli scholar B. Mazar believes that these books reflect several stages of the conquest: first, the Jerusalem king Adonizedek was defeated under Gibeon, and later the city was captured and destroyed by the tribes of the tribe of Judah. The construction is outwardly logical, but purely speculative and based solely on guesswork. According to the most authoritative researchers, the information in the Book of Judges about the capture of Jerusalem is secondary and can hardly claim historical authenticity. Who were the Jebusites who inhabited Jerusalem before the Israelite conquest? Everything we know about them fits into the line of Ezekiel's prophecy: "And say, Thus saith the Lord God of the daughter of Jerusalem, Thy root and thy homeland is in the land of Canaan, and thy father is the Amorites, and thy mother is a Hittite" (Ezekiel 16:3). On the basis of this, the Jebusites were considered either as ethnic Hittites, or as a tribe of Asia Minor, expelled from their historical homeland as a result of the invasion of the "Sea Peoples" and settled in Israel. Scholars are unanimous in one thing: on the eve of the Israelite conquest, Jebusite Jerusalem was a typical Canaanite city with a Semitic, Hurrian, and Hittite population. The site with the "Jebusite fortification" on the eastern slope of the hill, where early Jerusalem was located, was discovered in the 1960s by British archaeologist Kathleen Kenyon. Unfortunately, the excavation was small in area, so to this day, archaeologists have not come to the conclusion whether they found a corner of the tower of the city gate or some other fortification in the city wall. Usually this site is depicted in reconstructions as an imposing city gate, but they are built mainly on guesswork. A much more interesting "Jebusite" object is the "Warren Mine", named after the English explorer who discovered this unusual structure in the XIX century. It is associated with a well-known historical plot – the conquest of the city by King David, which opens the next, Israelite period in the history of Jerusalem. In the biblical text, the story of the capture of Jerusalem exists in two versions. According to the Second Book of Samuel (5:4-10), David set out on a campaign against the country of the Jebusites and Jerusalem. And the Jebusites "said to David, 'You will not enter here, you will be driven back by the blind and the lame,' which meant that David will not enter here. But David took the fortress of Zion: it is the city of David. And David said that day, "Whosoever killeth the Jebusites, let him smite with a spear both the lame and the blind, who hate the soul of David." Wherefore it is said, The blind and the lame shall not enter into the house of the Lord. And David dwelt in the fortress, and called it the city of David, and built it round about the Millo and within." However, the Synodal translation of the line we have highlighted is inaccurate. In the original it reads: "Whosoever shall slay the Jebusites, and touch the trumpet, and the lame and the blind, hateful to the soul of David." And the word "tsinor" (mentioned only once in the biblical text) conveys the meaning of "pipe", "tunnel", "gutter" [1]. What kind of "pipe or tunnel" is meant, and why was the king's special wrath directed against the "lame and blind"? The expression "touches the pipe", according to researchers, means nothing more than the penetration of David's soldiers into the city through a water canal - "Warren's Mine". This diagonal tunnel, carved along the line of a natural rock crack, ended in a deep shaft into which jugs descended from above. Moreover, according to I. Yadin, the Jebusites tried to intimidate David by displaying the sick and blind on the walls of the city. It was this rite, which implied that in the event of the capture of the city, the enemies would become lame and blind, that was performed by the Hittites when taking the army oath. No less mysterious was the mention of the fortress in Jerusalem ("City of David") and "Millo". The search for these places has been going on for a long time. The situation was complicated by one circumstance: according to all sources, the biblical temple of Solomon was located on Mount Moriah. It was only natural to assume that the Tabernacle and the Ark of the Covenant, which David had brought to Jerusalem, were also located there. Since the biblical text definitely stated that the Ark of the Lord was brought into the city of David (2 Samuel 6:16), the conclusion was that the city of David was located on Mount Moriah. An English map from an eighteenth-century atlas gives a schematic plan of Jerusalem based on a figurative interpretation of Old Testament descriptions and information from the Jewish Roman historian Josephus. In the west-facing map, the City of David is depicted in a bizarre circular shape on Mount Zion in the southwestern part of the old, walled city. The fallacy of such topography became clear in the 19th century, but only recent archaeological excavations have made it possible to correct it. It turned out that the City of David was located on the southeastern mountain range, south of the Temple Mount, and not on it. This place, called "District G" in the archaeological literature, was explored from 1978 to 1985 by an expedition led by Professor Yigal Shiloh. A large number of buildings were found there, contemporary with the First Temple, and later. The most interesting was the stepped stone structure, which apparently served as a retaining wall for the fortress of David and the kings of Judea. Researchers believe that this was the "Millo" mentioned in the biblical text. The word "miloh" itself is derived from a verb meaning "to fill". The artificial platform terrace was formed by stone retaining walls, the gap between which is filled with stones and earth. It was on it that the houses of the fortress city stood. By the end of the First Temple period, residential buildings were erected within this terrace. The "House of Ahiel", which consisted of four rooms, was reconstructed by archaeologists after the completion of the excavations. The eastern section of the district gave a magnificent collection of bull seal impressions made of clay, which were used by officials. Apparently, it was here that both the fortress of Zion and the place where David moved the Ark of the Covenant were located, which made Jerusalem the political and religious center of Israel. The land for the Ark of the Covenant was bought by David from Ornah the Jebu for six hundred gold shekels, according to the version of 1 Chronicles (21:25) or for fifty silver shekels, as mentioned in 2 Samuel (24:24). And on the threshing-floor of Ornah David built an altar to the Lord, and offered burnt offerings and peace-offerings. And the Lord was propitiated upon the country, and the defeat of Israel ceased" (2 Samuel 24:25). In the first book of Chronicles (11: 4-5) another version of the same story is recounted: "And David and all Israel went to Yerushalayim, that is, to Jebus. And there were the Jebusites, the inhabitants of the land. And the men of Jebus said to David, Thou shalt not enter here. But David took the fortress of Zion; it is the city of David. And David said, Whoever first smites the Jebusites will be the head and the captain of the army. And Joab the son of Zeruiah ascended before all, and became the head. David lived in that fortress, therefore it was called the city of David. And he built the whole circumference of the city, beginning with Millo, and Joab restored the rest of the city." ^

In Search of a Temple

The Temple, as we know, was given only to Solomon to build on Mount Moriah. This was the name of the area stretching from north to south between the valleys of Kidron and Hagai, bounded on the west by Mount Zion, and on the east by Mount Olive. It is with this place that the emergence of the sacred topography of Jerusalem is connected. At the origin of this tradition is a story from the Book of Genesis about Abraham's meeting with Melchizedek (14:18-19): "He was a priest of the Most High God. And he blessed him, and said, Blessed be Abraham from the Most High God, the Lord of heaven and earth..." However, a much more important moment in the sacred history of the mountain was Abraham's sacrifice of his son Isaac (Genesis 22). Finally, tradition associated Mount Moriah with the famous dream of Jacob, who saw a ladder reaching heaven, angels descending and ascending it: "And behold, the Lord stands on it, saying, I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father, and the God of Isaac. The ground on which you lie I will give you and your descendants" (Genesis 28:11-13). According to Israeli tradition, at the top of Mount Moriah were the "Foundation Stone", the symbolic foundation of the universe, and the "Holy of Holies" of the Temple of Solomon – the highest embodiment of the relationship between God and the people of Israel. The "Foundation Stone" on Mount Moriah turned out to be a very stable element of sacred topography. Christian pilgrims of the Middle Ages were not at all embarrassed by the fact that, according to the Bible, the "Dream of Jacob" and the construction of the altar took place not in Jerusalem, but in another city, Bethel. Many simply referred to Mount Moriah as Bethel because "Bethel" or "Beth-El" means "House of God" and it was easy to identify it with Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem. It was believed that it was here that the forefather Jacob rested, and here he had his dream, after which he erected the Foundation Stone. Johann of Würzburg, who visited the Holy Land in 1170, wrote: "This is a holy land. Here he saw a ladder, here he built an altar, here he heard the words of the Lord: "The ground on which you lie I will give you and your descendants." Jewish orthodoxy hold a similar interpretation today. Jacob, awakened from his sleep at Bethel, erected a monument to God from the stone that served as his head, and anointed it with oil: "This was the Foundation Stone. The Torah says: "And he (Jacob) came to a certain place and stayed there for the night" (Gen. 28:11). This place is Jerusalem, where the Temple was later erected; here Jacob prayed, saying with trembling, "How terrible is this place!" (Gen. 28:17). Why did he say that? Because he had a vision: he saw the construction of the sacred Temple, its destruction and its restoration to its former splendor. Two Jerusalems appeared before him: earthly and heavenly. And he said, "Truly the Lord is present in this place!" (Gen. 28:16). He saw Shokhina hovering over Mount Moriah, the site of the Temple, and so he called it Beth-El, the House of God." Solomon's construction of the Temple on Mount Moriah is described in detail in the Book of Kings. As is known, it was rebuilt several times, and the final reconstruction was undertaken by Herod the Great. However, during the famous Jewish War, the Second Temple was destroyed by the Romans. So, where was he standing? It should be noted right away that the current political situation in Israel does not allow for any serious archaeological research on the Temple Mount. Traditionally, it was located on or next to the site where the Arab mosque of the Dome of the Rock, Qubbat al-Sakhra, now stands. Supporters of this point of view rely on information from historical sources, according to which the Qubbat al-Sakhra Mosque blocked the remains of the Second Temple that stood here. This concept was most reasoned and consistently presented by Professor Lin Ritmeyer. He singled out two descriptions of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. One of them belongs to Josephus Flavius and dates back to the 1st century A.D., the second is contained in the tractate Middot, which was part of the Mishnah, the oldest part of the Talmud, written down around 200 A.D. According to Josephus, Solomon ordered the alignment of the top of the Temple Mount, resulting in a quadrangular terrace-square, "a perfectly smooth and level place without protrusions. The whole circumference of this square embraced in total four stadia, and each side of it had one stadia in length" (Antiquities of the Jews XV, 11, 3). After Herod the Great expanded the area of the Temple Mount, its circumference was already measured in six stadia (Jewish War 5.192). In Middot it is said that the Temple Mount measured 500 by 500 cubits (Middot 2.1). It would seem that what is simpler: to bring all the dimensions to one scale and put the resulting area on the plan. However, this is where the problem arose. The sizes did not match, and alas, not only the sizes... In fact, the sources are unanimous only in one thing – at one stage of construction, the top of the Temple Mount became a square square. What is to be believed, the information of Josephus Flavius or the data of Middotus? Since Middot was written much later than the year 70, the time of the destruction of the Second Temple, Josephus' data is more reliable. This was also confirmed by the study of the Western Wall, where four gates were found - exactly as many as indicated by Josephus ("Middot" calls one) [1]. There are other options for the location of the temple. Nearly two decades ago, Israeli physicist Asher Kaufman suggested that both the First and Second Temples were located 110 meters north of the Mosque of the Rock. According to his calculations, the Holy of Holies and the Foundation Stone are located under the current "Dome of the Spirits" - a small Muslim medieval structure. The opposite, "southern" (in relation to the mosque) location of the temple has been developed over the past five years by the famous Israeli architect Tuvia Sagiv. He places it on the site of the modern Al Qas fountain. Who is right: "traditionalists", "southerners" or "northerners"? Each of these concepts faces considerable difficulties. In order to evaluate some of them, let us dwell on the topography of the Temple Mount and its surrounding places. In all modern photographs, the elongated Mount Moriah is clearly visible, towering at the southern end of the City of David. This ridge continues through the Temple Mount and reaches its highest point outside the northern walls of the Old City. Thus, the rock base rises in a northerly direction, from the City of David to the Temple Mount. To the east of it are the valley of the Kidron River and the Mount of Olives, to the south are the City of David and the Valley of Hinnom, to the west is the world-famous western wall, or "Wailing Wall". To the north of the site occupied by the temple was the Roman "fortress of Antonia", beyond which extended a hill outside the city walls - according to a number of researchers of the Bizita, mentioned by Josephus. It would seem that it is easier to create a three-dimensional model of the Temple Mount by placing well-known objects on it. But this is where the problems arise. From the descriptions it is known that on the northern side of the city, on a hill twenty-five meters high, the fortress of Antonia towered. Proponents of the traditional location of the temple place it on the site where the modern building of the El Omria school stands. However, the height of the rock there is only five meters. Another discrepancy is the deep moat found between the Temple Mount and the Antonia Fortress, which, according to ancient authors, were adjacent to each other. This means that it could only be north of the defensive tower, but it is on this place that the Dome of the Rock Mosque stands! Trying to get out of the predicament, Asher Kaufman placed the temples right next to the moat, which was immediately followed by the poisonous remark of one of the opponents: "Kaufman's temple is falling into the moat!" That is why Tuvia Sagiv believes that the fortress of Antonia was to the south, on the site of the Dome of the Rock mosque. And one more discrepancy between the traditional version. The Hulda Gate was the southern entrance to the temple area in ancient times. According to the Mishnah, the height difference between them and the "Holy of Holies" was approximately 10 meters, and between the lower level of the entrance to the Temple Mount and the Temple itself, it was 39 meters. If the Temple of Solomon is placed on the site of the Mosque of the Rock, the numbers are different - 20 and 80 meters. There are some other important data. Josephus describes that the hill of Bizita was located north of the Temple Mount, so it obscured the view of the temple from the north. If the Temple had stood on the site of the Dome of the Rock, it would have been visible from the city of Ramallah. Consequently, it had to stand below the mosque, i.e. to the south of it. Further. Josephus Flavius in his "Wars of the Jews" mentions that King Herod Agrippa from his Hasmonean palace could see the sacrifice being performed on the altar of the Second Temple. This angered the Jews, who raised the western wall of the temple. In response, the Roman soldiers demanded that it be demolished altogether in order to have a view during the patrol. The Jews, however, managed to insist on their own way, having received the permission of the emperor Nero. If the temple was located on the site of the Mosque of the Rock, the height of the palace tower should have been at least 75 meters. Only then could one see the scene of the sacrifice on the altar of the sanctuary from the palace. A skyscraper in Jerusalem in the early Roman period is an obvious absurdity. Consequently, the temple was located much lower, and this also brings grist to the mill of its "southern" localization. Finally, the canals supplying water to Jerusalem began in the region of the mountains of Hebron, passing through the Pools of Solomon near Bethlehem to Jerusalem. The Lower Canal went to the Temple Mount through the Jewish Quarter and the modern Wilson Bridge. According to sources, the ancient aqueduct supplied water to the mikveh, a pool for ritual ablutions of the high priests, which was located above the Water Gate. In addition, the blood was washed away from the altar of the temple with water from the same water supply. Individual sections of this aqueduct have survived to this day. They allow us to judge that the aqueduct would have been 20 meters lower than the Temple if it had been located on the site of the Mosque of the Rock. There was no way he could maintain the Water Gate and the Altar of the temple. It would be a different matter if the temple stood 20 meters lower, i.e. to the south of the mosque... An important argument for the location of the temple is the results of preliminary radar sounding conducted by Tuvia Sagiv. They suggest the presence of vaults and other structures, which, if we adhere to the traditional location of the temple, must have been much further south. The northern section on the Temple Mount, illuminated by radar, gave a disappointing picture - there was rock everywhere. In addition, Sagiv recently came up with another interesting idea – to conduct a thermal scan of the walls and platform of the Temple Mount. The fact is that this site has a curious feature. During the day, the sun heats the Temple Mount evenly, which makes it possible to identify subsoil anomalies during night cooling. Infrared scans have revealed an ancient pentagonal structure beneath the Dome of the Rock Mosque. What kind of building it is is still unknown. Finally, one more circumstance should be taken into account. After the suppression of the Bar Kokhba revolt in 132 BC, the Romans demolished Jerusalem and built a new city in its place - Aelia Capitolina with the temple of Jupiter on the Temple Mount. A similar temple, built at the same time and by the same architect, was discovered at Baalbek (Lebanon). The complex consisted of a Roman rectangular basilica and a polygonal building opposite the courtyard. If you superimpose the buildings of Baalbek on the plan of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, then the Roman temple will be exactly on the site of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, and the polygonal building will be on the site of the Dome of the Rock mosque. All this coincides with the testimony of St. Jerome. In one of his comments, he writes that the equestrian statue of Emperor Hadrian was erected directly above the "Holy of Holies" section of the Jerusalem Temple. If the model from Baalbek accurately reflects the topography of the buildings on the Temple Mount of Jerusalem, then the "Holy of Holies" should be under the modern Al-Qas fountain. So the arguments of supporters of the "southern" localization of the temple are the most convincing today. The question of the location of Solomon's Temple is, unfortunately, not only of scientific interest. Recently, he has begun to get involved with big politics. In Israel, a radical religious movement is growing, advocating the construction of the Third Temple on the Temple Mount. In July 2001, it took only a few minutes for the ceremony of laying the foundation stone of the foundation. Under the protection of the police and the army, dozens of supporters of the Jewish movement "Faithful to the Temple Mount" laid a stone weighing 4.5 tons in the parking lot near the walls of the Old City in the foundation of the future temple, after which the block was immediately taken away, most likely to the nearest police station. This was the first major attempt to begin the construction of the Third Temple. The idea itself belongs to representatives of extreme right-wing movements. Among its supporters are Knesset member Benny Alon, brother of the Minister of Communications Limor Livnat, Assistant Minister of Transportation Yitzhak Levy, and settler rabbis. These people are determined to build the Temple during their lifetime. They sometimes refer to these plans as "changing the status quo on the Temple Mount." First they want to ensure that individuals pray on the Temple Mount, then the time will come to fulfill the commandment to establish the Altar, the Sanhedrin and the Assembly of the Children of Israel will be recreated, and only then will the construction of the Temple begin. The "Institute for the Study of the Temple Mount" has also developed projects for the Third Temple. Moreover, members of the "Movement for the Revival of the Temple" are engaged in growing... red cows! Their ashes are necessary for the ritual purification of anyone who wishes to set foot on the Temple Mount grounds. According to their ideas, based on the Jewish tradition, all people are in a state of "impurity and decay", because at least once in their lives they touched the deceased or things that were in the immediate vicinity of him. For this reason, they are currently prohibited from climbing the Mountain. Only the ashes of red cows can correct their condition... The reaction of the opposite side was not long in coming. The representative of the Jerusalem Orthodox Church, Rauf Abu Jaber, called the action of Israeli religious extremists with the laying of the foundation of the Third Temple madness. He said that "Israel wants to change the religious situation that has existed in Palestine for 1,400 years" and "this provocation could lead to an explosion with unpredictable consequences." In his opinion, "aggression against Islamic shrines will be followed by aggression against Christian values, first of all, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre." Therefore, "the Arabs, both Christians and Muslims, are ready to oppose the Judaization of Palestine." Thus, a purely scientific dispute about the location of Solomon's Temple develops into a major political problem. It remains to hope for sober calculation and common sense of leading politicians on both sides of the barricades. The very appearance of the temple is reconstructed on the basis of a very extensive biblical description in the First Book of Kings and architectural analogies. It is believed that his style was made up of elements characteristic of different countries of the Middle East region. This is also indicated by the Biblical lines: "And King Solomon sent, and took from Tyre Hiram, the son of a widow, of the tribe of Naphtali. His father, a Tyrian, was a coppersmith; he possessed the ability, the art and the ability to make all kinds of things from brass. And he came to King Solomon, and did all kinds of work with him" (1 Kings 7:13-14). Clay models of sanctuaries in Israel and nearby regions have been preserved. One of them was discovered in Tell Tainat in northern Syria and dates back to a slightly later time. The temple was divided into three parts: the inner court, the temple itself, and the "Holy of Holies," which fully corresponds to the biblical description of Solomon's temple (1 Kings 6:2-3, 16). Another clay model from Transjordan complements the information about the entrance to the temple, in front of which there were two columns on the sides. Of course, the architectural details and ornamentation are being reconstructed very presumably. Similar to clay models, column shapes have been found in many places in Israel since the time of Solomon. Many researchers are guided by the columns from Hazor, which stood at the main entrance to the fortress. The style of their capitals is usually defined as "proto-Aeolian". It is quite possible that this is what the Yakhin and Boaz mentioned in the Bible looked like - the two columns at the entrance to the Jerusalem temple. It is worth noting, however, that the gate in Hazor was built almost a hundred years later. Another version of the capitals is shown on the famous bone tablet depicting a woman looking out of a window with a balustrade. Among other things, this find echoes a passage from 2 Kings: "And Jehu came to Israel. And Jezebel, when she received the message, blushed her face, and adorned her head, and looked out of the window" (2 Kings 9:30). There is a version that this image was taken by the Assyrians from the capital of the Israeli kingdom of Samaria, which they took in 721 BC. The remains of a similar balustrade lattice were discovered at Ramat Rachel, near Jerusalem. Again, they are not identical to the column capitals from Hazor, although they are very similar. Despite all the differences, these finds reflect the general artistic style of the time and are equally likely to be used to reconstruct the appearance of Solomon's temple. According to the prophet Amos, Solomon's temple was "the king's holy place and the king's house" (Amos 7:13). Such a characterization in the ancient Near East meant that the temple was part of the royal palace complex. It should be noted that the temple undoubtedly dominated the surrounding buildings. The entrance to it led directly from the palace. Our understanding of what was inside the temple is also based on the biblical text and individual archaeological finds from other sites. Ceramic incense burners were apparently used to burn incense. Such vessels are well known from excavations of other sanctuaries. Related to the services held in the temple is an unusual item recently acquired by the Israel Museum. This is a small, about 5 cm high, product made of elephant garnet, which had the shape of a vase, with a high elongated neck, decorated with six oblong petals. The massive-looking case has a small, rather deep hole in the base. Apparently, it was intended for inserting a rod. Along the shoulders of the vessel there was an engraved inscription, partially knocked off. The researchers, however, managed to reconstruct it. The text read: "A sacred gift for the priests of the house of Yahweh." The study of the paleographic features of the inscription made it possible to attribute it to the middle of the VIII century B.C. The purpose of the object is obvious - a gift to the temple of Yahweh in Jerusalem, built by Solomon. The fruit of the pomegranate, abounding in juicy seeds, was considered a symbol of abundance. It is often mentioned in the Bible among other natural gifts for which the land of Israel was famous. The pomegranate was one of the favorite motifs of ancient Hebrew art. In the Book of 1 Samuel (7:42) it is said that the capitals of two columns on the façade of the temple were decorated with images of pomegranates. In addition, the high priest wore clothes with grenades (Exodus 28:33-34). According to researchers, priests performed some rites in the Jerusalem Temple with scepters decorated with pomegranates. The biblical text mentions a large "horned" altar in the temple courtyard used for animal sacrifices and a small altar for incense (1 Kings 1:50; 2:28-34). The "horned altars", so named because of the stylized completion of the corners of their upper parts, were discovered during the excavations of Beersheba and Megiddo. Professor Ritmeyer made an attempt to reconcile the contradictions of the two sources, which, in his opinion, do not exclude each other, but complement each other. In his opinion, Joseph describes the Temple Mount after the radical rebuilding of Herod the Great, and "Middot" characterizes the time of Solomon, while giving the size of not the entire area of the Temple Mount, but only the part of it that was considered holy ^

City of the Divided Kingdom

After Solomon, Jerusalem grew and expanded, going beyond the borders of David's time. The Bible mentions the names of the districts outside its walls, Mishneh and Makhtesh. The development took place in a rather specific way: due to the terrace layout of many sections, the walls of some houses were built on the roofs of others. Inside the City of David, archaeologists found stairs carved into the rock, which played the role of streets on steep slopes. King Hosea, who ruled in the Kingdom of Judah in 769 - 733 BC, was recalled by a curious find from... a collection of ancient items from the Russian Convent on the Mount of Olives! The Aramaic inscription is carved on a stone tablet measuring 35 by 35 cm and reads as follows: "The bones of Hosea, king of Judah, were brought here. Do not open!" This is nothing more than a funeral inscription of the ruler. Unfortunately, the place of its discovery is not known. King Hosea is a prominent biblical figure. The Bible describes both the deeds of this ruler and his funeral. "And Uzziah slept with his fathers, and they buried him with his fathers in the field of the king's sepulchres; for they said, He is a leper" (2 Chronicles 26:23). Josephus, on the contrary, indicates that Hosea was buried alone in the garden. (Antiquities of the Jews 9:10,4) The inscription in question shows that Hosea was reburied, which may be due to the expansion of the city under Herod the Great. Jerusalem experienced two periods of rapid population growth. The first and most significant occurred around 721 B.C.E., when the Northern Kingdom of Israel was defeated by Assyria and its surviving inhabitants were forced to resettle in the Southern Kingdom of Judah. The second peak came twenty years later, when the inhabitants of the coastal lands of Israel sought salvation outside the walls of Jerusalem from the invasion of the Assyrian king Sannachcherib. Evidence of this campaign is the ruins of Lakish and the famous Assyrian reliefs with detailed descriptions of victories in cuneiform texts. In 705, the Judean king Hezekiah, taking advantage of the death of the Assyrian king Sargon II, tried to free himself from Assyrian power. The new king Sannachcherib decided to put the rebellious ruler in his place. His armies approached Jerusalem and besieged it. Hezekiah was saved from complete disaster only by an epidemic of plague that broke out in the enemy camp. Monuments to the siege of Jerusalem by the Assyrians are the so-called Hezekiah's Tunnel and the Siloam Inscription. To protect access to the water from enemies, the tunnel was carved inside the mainland rock. It connected the Gihon Spring and the Pool of Siloam, which was within the new city walls built by Hezekiah. From the Second Book of Chronicles (32:30) it is known that the king also built a tunnel in preparation for the siege of the city by the Assyrians: "He, Hezekiah, also blocked the upper channel of the waters of the Gihon, and led them down to the western side of the city of David." The outer entrance to the Gihon Spring was hidden. "When Hezekiah saw that Sennacherib (Sannacherib) had come with the intention of fighting against Jerusalem, then he decided with his princes and with his military men to fill up the springs of water outside the city; And they helped him. And a multitude of people gathered together, and filled up all the springs, and the brook that flowed through the country, saying, Let not the kings of Assyria, when they come hither, find much water" (2 Chronicles 32:2-4). Now the waters of Gihon went to the Pool of Siloam, a small reservoir also built by Hezekiah. As it is said in 2 Kings (20:20), "he made a pond and a water supply and brought water into the city." At the end of the XIX century, an inscription was found in the tunnel telling how it was dug. Although the king's name is not given, it is clear from the contents that it can only refer to the time of Hezekiah. "Tunnel. And here is the story of the tunnel... Pickaxe vs pickaxe. And when there were three cubits left to be broken, they could be heard calling out to each other, for there was a crevice in the rock on the right. And on the day the tunnel was completed, the stonemasons struck towards each other, pickaxe against pickaxe. And the water flowed from the spring into the pond at a distance of 1200 cubits, and 100 cubits was the height of the rock above the head of the stonecutters." The ruler of Judah made peace with the Assyrian king, paying a huge tribute. In his annals, Sannachcherib proudly reported: "As for Hezekiah the Jew, who did not bow under my yoke, I surrounded and conquered by an assault of war machines and an onslaught of battering rams, by infantry combat, by undermining 46 of his mighty cities, fortresses and small villages, which are in the vicinity, which are innumerable... He himself, like a bird in a cage, I locked up inside Jerusalem, its capital. And he erected fortifications against him and turned the exit from the city into an abomination to him..." During the excavations of Professor Avigad, a powerful seven-meter wall was discovered, which was called "wide". According to ceramic finds, it also belongs to the time of Hezekiah. A characteristic detail: it goes on top of pre-existing buildings. How can we not recall the phrase of the prophet Isaiah: "And you mark the houses in Jerusalem, and destroy the houses, to strengthen the wall" (Isaiah 22:10). In the modern Jewish quarter of the Old City, another section of the wall has been explored. And a little to the north of the "wide" once towered a massive defensive tower, built in the same technique. Witnesses of the battles that flared up here were the arrowheads scattered outside its borders, both Israeli and enemy. The fortifications withstood the siege of the Assyrians, fell before the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II in 586 B.C. Finds in the fire layer confirmed the lines of the biblical text: "In the fifth month, on the seventh day of the month, that is, in the nineteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, Nebuzaradan, the commander of the bodyguard, the servant of the king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem. And he burned the house of the Lord and the house of the king; and all the houses in Jerusalem, and all the great houses, he burned with fire; And the walls round about Jerusalem were broken down by the army of the Chaldees, which was with the captain of the guards" (2 Kings 25: 8-10). By the way, the fortifications of Hezekiah were restored only five hundred years later during the Hasmonean dynasty ("Second Temple Age"). To the time of Hezekiah, there is also a rock tomb with an interesting funeral rite. The carved inscription is similar in style to the Siloam inscription. It warns of the absence of treasures: there are only the bones of the buried man and his mother. And a curse will fall on the one who dares to open the burial. The title of the deceased himself sounds literally as "He who is on the house". A person with such a title could be the head of the royal palace. The press can tell a lot of interesting things about Hezekiah's officials. Their impressions remained on the clay with which officials sealed scrolls with letters and instructions. They were preserved due to the fact that the fire strengthened the clay and did not allow it to stratify. So now we have information about the positions and even the names of the officials who sent the messages. One of them was Jehozarah Ben-Hilkiah, "the servant of Hezekiah." Another seal depicts the king handing over the royal insignia to an official who bears the title of "Minister of the City". This title was held by the governor of the city of Jerusalem, appointed by the king (Judges 9:28-30; 1 Kings 22:26). The destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BC by the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II completes the history of the Old Testament city. So, what is biblical archaeology today? It should be admitted that it did not cope with the originally set confessional task – to find the historical basis of the Old Testament texts. Recent research has revealed that the descriptions of the era of the Patriarchs are entirely legendary, and only from the time of David and Solomon reliable information is found in them. The conclusions of I.Sh. Shifman look quite convincing even today: "In the narrative of the Book of Genesis, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are the characters of a mythologized historical legend placed in an imaginary situation... Parallel ethnographic material shows that the original ancestors of a society are usually legendary, mythological characters; Israel was hardly an exception in this regard... Nevertheless, the legends about the patriarchs contain abundant and diverse material that makes it possible to judge the way of life, everyday life and customs of the population of Palestine at the time when these legends were formed." It is always useful to separate truth from fiction. In this case, it is especially so, because symbols sometimes acquire exceptional power if real events are seen behind them. One of the key episodes of the Old Testament – the Exodus from the Egyptian captivity – has recently been used so successfully that the Soviet people humbly rushed after the new Moses on a forty-year journey through the desert in order to starve the slaves in themselves, and at the same time themselves. To what has already been said about this subject, we will only add the words of I. M. Dyakonov: "The above story (about Moses – Auth.) - a myth, moreover, set forth three or four hundred years later than the supposed events; so far, no objective evidence and external data could confirm it, and it is useless to search for a rational kernel in it"... It is time, however, to sum up. The newly discovered "Jewish antiquities" are unlikely to be particularly encouraging for confessionally oriented researchers or teachers: biblical archaeology is not able to confirm the Old Testament texts "from A to Z." However, it has already taken its rightful place in the study of the Middle East and opened many pages in the history of one of the centers of world civilization, where entire peoples clashed, merged and died. There is no doubt that the "archaeology of the biblical lands" will bring many more amazing finds. Andrey Sazanov. Doctor of Historical Sciences