The City of David

Modern Jerusalem is divided into two major areas: the Old City and everything else. The Old City is easily identified by the great walls around it, built in 1517 by Suleiman the Great, the Ottoman Turk. But, of course, there are layers and layers of history here, and the Old City is not really very old. A visit to the City of David, an archeological site outside of those walls, took us deep into Jerusalem's Biblical past.

To get to The City of David we first walked through a lovely steep valley on the southern side of the Old City, with wild cyclamen on the cliffs.



The pictures below help make sense of the geography. The first is a modern aerial view of the hillside leading up to the walls of the Old City, with the temple mount in plain view at the top.


This drawing of the ancient City of David shows the same view. The ravine on the right and the road to the left in the photograph above clearly show the original boundaries, even with the walls gone.


The uppermost part of the city is where David's son Solomon built the first temple--the present-day temple mount.

The City of David was originally inhabited by Jebusites, at least 4,000 years ago. It was a good location for a settlement because of the spring of Gihon. Tunnels were hewed out of solid rock to bring water from the spring to another spot safe within the city walls. We walked through the dry tunnel below; another tunnel, built by Hezekiah, still flows with water, but we weren't prepared to get wet sloshing through it.


This sign commemorates the meeting of the rock-cutters in 701 B.C.: what an engineering accomplishment!


After its underground journey the water flows into the pool of Shiloah (Siloam in the New Testament):


Archeological digs continue nearby:


We marveled at the skill of ancient craftsmen and also of modern archeologists, who dig deep into rocky hillsides to uncover the hidden past. An "old city" is really a matter of historical perspective, and in these ruins and tunnels we discovered the true old city of Jerusalem--the City of David.