15-Year Excavation Completed at Jerusalem’s Gihon Spring (Video)

This short video shows the powerful Canaanite fortifications at Jerusalem prior to David’s time. Anyone who has visited the Gihon Spring in the past 15 years has seen the massive stones along with sandbags and other evidence of excavation. The video shows Joe Uziel (who also works at Tel es-Safi/Gath and Tel Burna) summarizing work at the site.

Some scholars suggest there is sparse evidence the City of David was occupied or fortified for much of the biblical period, particularly in the Late Bronze-Early Iron Periods. (Biblically, these are the Late Judges-Early Kingdom periods.) A recent article proposes that ancient Jerusalem may have been located under the Herodian platform on Mt. Moriah rather than the ridge normally associated with the City of David (Finkelstein:Koch:Lipschits, 2011). As Todd Bolen has pointed out, the existence of these massive fortifications around the Gihon Spring is one of several problems this hypothesis faces.

The biblical record (2 Sam. 5:6-8) indicates Jerusalem had significant fortifications including a “stronghold” around the time of David in the late 11th-early 10th century BC, during the early Iron period. Dr. Uziel’s summary in the video above concludes these Middle Bronze fortifications continued to used into the Iron period. If this is correct, we have physical evidence of Jerusalem that reflects some of the conditions described in the biblical account.

Remains of a Middle Bronze tower protecting the Gihon Spring – ancient Jerusalem’s water supply. Notice the sandbags and locus signage from the excavation. (Photo by Luke Chandler)

Notice the size of these Middle Bronze (ca. 3800 before present) fortification stones. Stones of this size were not used again in Jerusalem’s defenses until Herod’s construction in the Roman period. Such massive defenses indicate significant centralized power and resources at the time of construction. (Photo by Luke Chandler)

We look forward to seeing published results in the future. This process often takes years, so some patience is warranted.