Jerusalem: the upturned archaeological layer cake

ARCHAEOLOGY: Evidence of Jerusalem’s Destruction at the Hands of Babylonians, Then Romans Now Revealed on Mount Zion. Jerusalem was destroyed twice, in 586 B.C.E. and 70 C.E. New archaeological work at Mount Zion reveals evidence of both horrors, a new theory for Nehemiah's walls, rare weights from the First Temple period – and a magical rib bone (Ruth Schuster, Haaretz).

Mount Zion might be considered a stratigraphic nightmare studded as it is with enough pottery pieces and small finds to sink a trireme. “Reverse stratigraphy” with chronological layers out of order, is commonplace here. It’s enough to make any archaeologist shudder.

Pottery is usually useful for dating purposes. But here, for example, Iron Age pottery from the eighth to sixth centuries B.C.E. pops up in almost all the layers through to the Ottoman era, which is spectacularly unhelpful. A Roman layer emerges superimposed above a (later) Byzantine layer, which isn’t supposed to happen: they're supposed to be the other way around.

A long and informative article.

Another recent article on the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem is noted here. For more on Nehemiah's wall, see here and links.

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