An IAA Archaeological Excavation in the Heart of the Old City Confirms a Description on an Ancient Map: For the First Time the Main Road of Jerusalem, from 1,500 Years Ago, is Exposed

The excavations are being carried out at the initiation of the Jerusalem Development Authority, prior to rehabilitating the infrastructure.

From his knowledge of the Madaba Map, Dr. Ofer Sion, excavation director on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority, surmised that the place where the infrastructure will be replaced is where a main road passes that is known from the map. “And indeed, after removing a number of archaeological strata, at a depth of c. 4.5 m below today’s street level, much to our excitement we discovered the large flagstones that paved the street”.   The flagstones, more than a meter long, were found cracked from the burden of centuries.   A foundation built of stone was unearthed alongside the street on which a sidewalk and a row of columns, which have not yet been revealed, were founded.  According to Dr. Sion, “It is wonderful to see that David Street, which is teeming with so much life today, actually preserved the route of the noisy street from 1,500 years ago”. 

During the Middle Ages a very large building that faced the street was constructed on the stone foundation of the Byzantine period. In a later phase, during the Mamluk period (thirteenth-fourteenth centuries CE) elongated rooms were built inside this structure, some of which are vaulted; these were apparently used as shops and storerooms. It turns out that beneath this building – right below the street that runs between David’s Citadel and David Street and leads to the Armenian Quarter – is an enormous cistern, 8 x 12 meters and 5 meters deep, which supplied water to its occupants.

The Madaba Map is an 8 x 16 meter mosaic map that was built in a church in Madaba, Jordan and described the Land of Israel through the intimate knowledge the mosaic’s builder had of the country. The map depicts schematically all of the Land of Israel, with an emphasis on the Christian sites in it. Among other things that appear on the map are many of the churches they began to erect at this time when the city underwent a religious change from paganism to Christianity. The churches can be identified by the red roofs that are portrayed on the map.

The artifacts that were discovered in the excavations include an abundance of pottery vessels and coins and five small square bronze weights that the shopkeepers used for weighing precious metals.

E-H Dictionary

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