The Broad Wall
A massive wall thrown up across the western hill, cutting through demolished houses, in the years Assyria was coming.
Confirmed by the groundExcavated sitelate 8th century BC
A seven-metre-thick city wall, still standing to shoulder height, built in a hurry across the western hill — straight through houses that were demolished to make room. Isaiah says of that emergency: "ye have numbered the houses of Jerusalem, and the houses have ye broken down to fortify the wall."
And ye have numbered the houses of Jerusalem, and the houses have ye broken down to fortify the wall.
- Found
- The Jewish Quarter, Old City of Jerusalem, 1970 — Nahman Avigad's excavation
- Now held at
- In place, exposed and walkable, Jerusalem
- How it reached us
- Dug up, or still standing where it was built.
What it shows
The wall is undated by any inscription; the eighth-century date comes from pottery and stratigraphy, and is the standard reading.
How historians use it
A fixed point in the archaeology of Jerusalem's expansion in the late Iron Age.
In Scripture
Connects to
Sources
- Avigad, Discovering Jerusalem (1983)
These summaries are written in English for now. Translations follow.