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For the First Time: A Hasmonean Building Uncovered in the City of David

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The uncovered building.   Photo Credit:  Courtesy of the Israel Antiquities Authority
The uncovered building. Photo Credit: Courtesy of the Israel Antiquities Authority
Tazpit News Agency

In recent months remains of an impressive structure from the Hasmonean period (second century BCE) have been unearthed in excavations conducted by the Israel Antiquities Authority in the Giv‘ati site, located in the City of David near the walls surrounding the Old City. Josephus wrote about Hasmonean Jerusalem, but it is only now that remains of a building are being exposed from this period of the city’s history

The building stands 4 meters high and covers an area of 64 sq. m. The building’s broad walls, more than one meter thick, are made of roughly hewn limestone blocks that were arranged as headers and stretchers, a construction method characteristic of the Hasmonean period.

Although numerous pottery vessels were discovered inside the building, it was mainly the coins that surprised the researchers. The dating of these coins indicate that the structure was erected in the early second century BCE and continued to be in use into the Hasmonean period, during which significant changes were made inside the building.

Dr. Doron Ben Ami and Yana Tchekhanovets, the excavation directors on behalf to the Israel Antiquities Authority, stated that: “The importance of this discovery is primarily because of the conspicuous paucity of buildings from the Hasmonean city of Jerusalem in archaeological research, despite the many excavations that have been conducted to date. Apart from several remains of the city’s fortifications that were discovered in different parts of Jerusalem, as well as pottery and other small finds, none of the Hasmonean city’s buildings have been uncovered so far, and this discovery bridges a certain gap in Jerusalem’s historical sequence. The Hasmonean city, which is well-known to us from the historical descriptions that appear in the works of Josephus, has suddenly acquired tangible expression”.

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