[Discov] Israeli archaeologists find ancient fortification

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This image made available by Israel's Antiquities Authority Wednesday, Sept. 2, 2009 shows part of a a 3,700-year-old fortification wall discovered in Jerusalem. Archaeologists have discovered a 3,700-year-old wall in the City of David, part of the earliest fortification construction on such a large scale ever found in Jerusalem, the Israel Antiquities Authority said Wednesday. The 26-foot high wall is believed to have been part of a protected passage used by the Biblical Canaanites that led from a fortress on top of a hill to a spring. Ronny Reich, director of the excavation and a professor of archaeology at the University of Haifa, said the discovery marks the first time such "massive construction" before the time of King Herod was found in the oldest parts of the city




JERUSALEM — Archaeologists digging in Jerusalem have uncovered a 3,700-year-old wall that is the oldest example of massive fortifications ever found in the city, the Israel Antiquities Authority said Wednesday.
The 26-foot-high wall is believed to have been part of a protected passage built by ancient Canaanites from a hilltop fortress to a nearby spring that was the city's only water source and vulnerable to marauders.
The discovery marks the first time archaeologists have found such massive construction from before the time of Herod, the ruler behind numerous monumental projects in the city 2,000 years ago, and shows that Jerusalem of the Middle Bronze Age had a powerful population capable of complex building projects, said Ronny Reich, director of the excavation and an archaeology professor at the University of Haifa.
The wall dates to the 17th century B.C., when Jerusalem was a small, fortified enclave controlled by the Canaanites, one of the peoples the Bible says lived in the Holy Land before the Hebrew conquest. The kingdom thought to have been ruled from Jerusalem by the biblical King David is usually dated to at least seven centuries later.
A small section of the wall was first discovered in 1909, but diggers have now exposed a 79-foot portion, and Reich believes it stretches much further. Reich said budget constraints related to the global financial crisis put an end to the excavation, at least for now.
"The wall is enormous, and that it survived 3,700 years — this is, even for us, a long time," Reich said. It was remarkable that a fortification of this kind was not dismantled for later building projects, he said.
"When you just stand there and see it, it is amazing," he said.
The wall and other archaeological finds at the site will be opened to the public beginning Thursday, the Antiquities Authority said.
Archaeological research at the site known as the City of David, just outside the walls of Jerusalem's Old City, is caught up in the struggle for control over the city.
The archaeological site, one of the richest in a country full of ancient remains, is in the midst of a Palestinian neighborhood in east Jerusalem.
The City of David digs are funded by Elad, a Jewish settler organization that also buys Palestinian homes and brings Jewish families into the neighborhood. Palestinian and Israeli critics have charged that the archaeology is being used as a political tool to cement Jewish control over parts of Jerusalem that Palestinians want for the capital of a future state.
Israel captured the Arab section of Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war. Unlike other areas it captured, Israel quickly annexed east Jerusalem and declared the whole city as its capital. In some rounds of failed peace talks, Israel has indicated willingness to cede Arab sections to a Palestinian state, but no agreement was reached.
The current Israeli government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has taken such offers off the table, and no peace negotiations are in progress now.



source: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/...NmW7QD9AF8KE81

[DAVIDE]

JERUSALEM (CNN) -- An archaeological dig in Jerusalem has turned up a 3,700-year-old wall that is the largest and oldest of its kind found in the region, experts say.


The wall is built of enormous boulders, confounding archaeologists as to how ancient peoples built it.







Standing 8 meters (26 feet) high, the wall of huge cut stones is a marvel to archaeologists.
"To build straight walls up 8 meters ... I don't know how to do it today without mechanical equipment," said the excavation's director, Ronny Reich. "I don't think that any engineer today without electrical power [could] do it."
Archaeologist Eli Shukron of the Israel Antiquities Authority added, "You see all the big boulders -- all the boulders are 4 to 5 tons."
The discovered section is 24 meters (79 feet) long. "However, it is thought the fortification is much longer because it continues west beyond the part that was exposed," the Israel Antiquities Authority said in a news release.
It was found inside the City of David, an archaeological excavation site outside the Old City of East Jerusalem on a slope of the Silwan Valley.
The wall is believed to have been built by the Canaanites, an ancient pagan people who the Bible says inhabited Jerusalem and other parts of the Middle East before the advent of monotheism. Watch report on the discovery of the ancient wall »
"This is the most massive wall that has ever been uncovered in the City of David," Reich and Shukron said in a joint statement about the find. It marks the first time "that such massive construction that predates the Herodian period has been discovered in Jerusalem."
It appears to be part of a "protected, well-fortified passage that descends to the spring tower from some sort of fortress that stood at the top of the hill," according to the joint statement.
The spring "is located in the weakest and most vulnerable place in the area. The construction of a protected passage, even though it involves tremendous effort, is a solution for which there are several parallels in antiquity, albeit from periods that are later than the remains described here."
Such walls were used primarily to defend against marauding desert nomads looking to rob the city, said Reich, a professor at the University of Haifa.
"We are dealing with a gigantic fortification, from the standpoint of the structure's dimensions, the thickness of its walls and the size of the stones that were incorporated in its construction," the joint statement said.



Water from the spring is used by modern inhabitants of Jerusalem.
"The new discovery shows that the picture regarding Jerusalem's eastern defenses and the ancient water system in the Middle Bronze Age 2 is still far from clear," Reich said. "Despite the fact that so many have excavated on this hill, there is a very good chance that extremely large and well-preserved architectural elements are still hidden in it and waiting to be uncovered."


Source: http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/...ef=mpstoryview