The Changing Character of Iron Age Jerusalem as Revealed in the Ophel Excavations

Excavations by Benjamin and Eilat Mazar on the Ophel – south of the Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount – have yielded important and substantial remains from the Iron Age. This area stands close to where the biblical text locates the Israelite royal precinct, about which we know almost nothing archaeologically. Aspects of these remains have been presented and discussed in recent publications by Eilat Mazar, Ariel Winderbaum, Israel Finkelstein, and the present author. Winderbaum's work adds significant new information. The present paper critically evaluates Winderbaum's conclusions, against the backdrop of Mazar's and Finkelstein's conclusions, and offers a significantly different reconstruction of the area's Iron Age history, particularly in relation to the 11th, 10th and 9th centuries bce.