arrival of Islam in the seventh century A.D. sud-
denly displace Christianity, as historians long
assumed. Many excavations show little change
in the day-to-day life of Christian residents.
Yet the digs have unearthed clay seal impres-
sions bearing the names of biblical courtiers,
lending credibility to their existence. Archaeo-
logical work also backs Empress Helena’s asser-
tion that Jesus was crucified and buried on land
that is within what is now the Church of the Holy
Sepulchre. And archaeologist Eilat Mazar of the
Hebrew University of Jerusalem even claims to
have found the palace of King David, the first
Israelite ruler of Jerusalem.
One quiet Saturday morning, the Jewish Sab-
bath, I run into Mazar as she wanders through
the otherwise deserted City of David park. On
the northeastern edge of the narrow ridge, she
excavated a building with thick walls next to an
impressive stepped stone structure that bracesthat most of what was destroyed by the waqf
was Islamic.”
ON A DRIZZLY WINTER morning I make my way
to the entrance of the Western Wall tunnels,
just off the plaza dense with men in black hats
and coats. Inside is a jumble of underground
reception halls, prayer areas, and archaeologi-
cal excavations. Down the hall from a glass-and-
steel synagogue cantilevered within a medieval
Islamic religious school are Roman latrines and a
recently unearthed small theater—the first found
in ancient Jerusalem—built as part of the second-
century revival of the city as Aelia Capitolina.
At a plywood door covering a stone arch, I
meet Shlomit Weksler-Bdolah. She speaks as
fast as she moves. “Come, come. I must get back
down,” the IAA archaeologist says as she trots
down stairs that smell of freshly sawed wood.
In the humid chamber below, three young Arab
men in T-shirts casually maneuver a two-ton
stone dangling from iron chains. Weksler- Bdolah
explains that it’s being moved to give tourists
access to what she argues were formal banquet
rooms built during the rule of Herod the Great.
“We are standing in the western triclinium”—
a Roman term for a dining area with couches—
“and the eastern hall is just beyond that pas-
sage,” she says while keeping an eye on the
gently swaying rock. According to her research,
the elegant compound was built in the first cen-
tury B.C. to wine and dine important visitors in
grand fashion. Hidden lead pipes spouted water
to create a pleasing ambience.
Weksler-Bdolah excuses herself when an
engineer in a white helmet calls out from above.
They have a long and heated discussion over a
section of yellow plaster that he wants to remove
to accommodate a metal stairway for tourists.
“This is Roman-era plaster and very unusual,”
she says to me in an aside. These are the sort of
debates that echo regularly beneath the streets
of Jerusalem: What should remain, and what
should be sacrificed?
A CENTURY AND A HALF of discoveries under
Jerusalem have upset old beliefs and dashed
cherished myths. Many archaeologists today
dismiss the biblical vision of King Solomon’s
glittering capital of a large empire. The famous
monarch is not even mentioned in any archaeo-
logical find of the era. Early Jerusalem was more
likely a minor fortified hill town. Nor did the
62 NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC