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The City of David, more specifically the southeastern hill of first- and second-millennium BCE Jerusalem, has long captivated the imagination of the world. Archaeologists and historians, biblical scholars and clergy, Christians, Muslims, and Jews, and tourists and armchair travelers from every corner of the globe, to say nothing of politicians of all stripes, look to this small stretch of land in awe, amazement, and anticipation. In the City of David, in the ridge leading down from the Temple Mount, hardly a stone has remained unturned. Archaeologists have worked at a dizzying pace digging and analyzing. But while preliminary articles abound, there is a grievous lack of final publications of the excavations—a regrettable limitation on the ability to fully integrate vital and critical results into the archaeological reconstruction of ancient Jerusalem. Excavations of the City of David are conducted under the auspices of the Israel Antiquities Authority. The Authority has now partnered with the Center for the Study of Ancient Jerusalem and its publication arm, the Ancient Jerusalem Publication Series, for the publication of reports that are written and designed for the scholar as well as for the general reader. Excavations in the City of David (APJ 1), is the first volume in this series.

The City of David, more specifically the southeastern hill of first- and second-millennium BCE Jerusalem, has long captivated the imagination of the world. Archaeologists and historians, biblical scholars and clergy, Christians, Muslims, and Jews, and tourists and armchair travelers from every corner of the globe, to say nothing of politicians of all stripes, look to this small stretch of land in awe, amazement, and anticipation. In the City of David, in the ridge leading down from the Temple Mount, hardly a stone has remained unturned. Archaeologists have worked at a dizzying pace digging and analyzing. But while preliminary articles abound, there is a grievous lack of final publications of the excavations-a regrettable limitation on the ability to fully integrate vital and critical results into the archaeological reconstruction of ancient Jerusalem. Excavations of the City of David are conducted under the auspices of the Israel Antiquities Authority. The Authority has now partnered with the Center for the Study of Ancient Jerusalem and its publication arm, the Ancient Jerusalem Publication Series, for the publication of reports that are written and designed for the scholar as well as for the general reader. Excavations in the City of David (APJ 1), is the first volume in this series.

Jerusalem of the early Roman period (the late Second Temple period), was the Temple City. The Jewish faith permitted the existence of a single Temple, which developed the pilgrimage of the people to their single place of worship. Pilgrimage became a phenomenon which characterized the city. This study aims in summarizing the currently available archaeological remains which characterize the peculiar nature of the Jewish temple-city. Most of these features clearly relate to the Jewish religious rules (halakha). La Jérusalem du début de la période romaine (la fin de la période du Second Temple) était la ville du Temple. La foi juive permettait l’existence d’un seul Temple, ce qui développa le pèlerinage du peuple vers cet unique lieu de culte. Le pèlerinage était devenu un phénomène qui caractérisait la ville. Cette étude cherche à récapituler les restes archéologiques actuellement disponibles qui caractérisent la nature particulière de cette ville-temple juive. La plupart de ces caractéristiques se rapportent clairement aux prescriptions religieuses juives (Halakha).

Among the architectural remains found in Jerusalem, of the early Roman (Herodian) period, is a series of Attic bases, Ionic capitals and column drums with an average diameter of 1 meter. These were found in various places, but the largest concentrations are south of the Temple Mount and in the center of the Jewish Quarter. It is suggested that these items were dismantled from the Royal Portico (Stoa Basileios) by the Roman Army, after the sack of Jerusalem in 70 C.E., hauled from the Temple Mount to the Upper City, to construct a monument. This Roman monument is attested by a massive foundation found in the Jewish Quarter, right near the location of discovery of the items, which served as part of the raised podium for the monument, as well as by a Latin mason mark and the remains of a sculptured head of a lion.

Shimon Gibson has recently suggested that the stone collapse of the Western Wall of the Temple Mount is the outcome of the 363 CE earthquake (Gibson 2014; 2016). This note provides several arguments to refute this suggestion.

The article re-examines the parameters which are used for an estimation of the population of Jerusalem in the late Second Temple period, i.e. the population of the big Temple City. The outcome of the changes in these parameters (population density; defining the area devoted to private housing), a new figure for the population of the city of that period is suggested – around 30000 people (see Fig. 1 and Table), based on a coefficient of 500 persons per hectare. A second issue discussed is the reason to the construction of the Second Wall described by Flavius Josephus (Ant. 4, 146, 158). The construction project of the Temple Mount required a large working force of many thousand of people (Ant. 15, 390; 20, 219), for a considerably long time. These people were brought from the countryside and other towns, and resided in the city. It is the author's opinion, that this influx of people required the addition of a new quarter to the city, which was also soon fortified with Josephus' Second Wall. The population density in this quarter was high, and as it increased another fortified quarter was added, under Agrippa 1st, fortified by the Third Wall. Another source of people who might have been housed in the newly fortified part of the city, are those who lost their houses which happened to be located in the areas into which the Temple Mount was extended, as attested by the newly found remains along the western and southern Temple Mount walls.

A small stone vessel is presented which was retrieved in an excavation carried out recently near the Temple Mount. The object, dating to the late Second Temple period is bearing a representation of a menorah which is incised upon its side. The author is of the opinion that the depicted menorah contributes to the question related to the form and construction of the base of this object, which once stood inside the Temple in Jerusalem.

This article presents a clay bulla (13×14 mm. in size), discovered in the excavations conducted by R. Reich and E. Shukron on the eastern slope of the City of David, south of the spring, in association with pottery sherds of the eighth-seventh centuries BCE. The bulla, inscribed in palaeo-Hebrew script, reads: בשבעח/[ב]יחלחם/[למל]ד. It seems to be a bulla of the type first dubbed 'fiscal' by N. Avigad. Over 20 similar bullae are currently known, all except two unprovenanced. The present bulla, as well as one recently excavated by G. Barkay in Jerusalem, are provenanced, as they originate from licensed excavations. The significance of these two items lies in the possibility of tracing the path of the taxes to which this docket was attached. In addition, the bulla under discussion is the first mention of the toponym Beit Lehem in a source external to the Bible.