Dig reveals Jerusalem's first city wall

Impressive remains from Jerusalem's first city wall - built by Hasmonean kings and destroyed by the Romans during the Jewish revolt - as well as part of a Byzantine period wall, have been discovered at an archaeological excavation on Mount Zion. The fortified structures, located at the edge of the Old City, apparently delineated Jerusalem's southern border at the time when the ancient city was at its prime.

A team of archaeologists led by Yehiel Zelinger of the Israel Antiquities Authority has excavated at the site for the past year and a half, in cooperation with the Nature and Parks Authority.

A wall along the city's perimeter, which runs west and south of Mount Zion, was first discovered and explored at the end of the 19th century by a British archaeological team. But over the years, their dig became full of earth and when the Israeli team tried to establish where the British team had dug a century earlier, they were unable to locate remains of the excavation.

Zelinger used maps of the original excavation and compared them with up-to-date maps of the area to find the tunnel that the British archaeologists had dug. There, his team came across a number of "souvenirs" from the earlier dig - a shoe left behind by one of the diggers, part of a gas burner that had been used to light the tunnel, and some broken beer and wine bottles from 120 years ago.

The location of the two walls on Mount Zion, Zelinger believes, lends support to the theory of how the city spread southward during these two periods, when biblical Jerusalem was at its heyday.

"During the Second Temple period, the city and the temple which stood in its midst were the focus of pilgrimage for Jews from all parts of the ancient world, and during the Byzantine period it was a focus of attraction for Christian pilgrims, who wished to follow the story of the life and death of their messiah," he says.

"The revelation of the wall from the Hasmonean period and of the fortification exactly on top of it - which is dated to more than 400 years later, during the Byzantine era - prove that this is the most suitable topographical location for defending the city."