Jerusalem has long been a peculiarly frustrating site for the archaeologist. Not only its topographical features but also its strategic and political importance have conspired together to make this so. Down the ages the same local stones have been used time and again by succeeding generations of builders, and no ancient buildings have been able to survive intact; countless quarries have disrupted and often destroyed tell-tale archaeological levels; the precipitous situation of the city has often condemned to ultimate collapse the fortifications and even the internal structures of the city in antiquity; and the armies and the workmen of the successive masters of Jerusalem have ensured, by their systematic and radical process of destruction and reconstruction, that most, if not all, of the evidence of their predecessors’ city should vanish without trace. From the time of David’s capture of Jerusalem from the hands of the Jebusites right down to the reign of the sixteenth-century caliph Suleiman the Magnificent, the city has undergone a series of drastic changes, not only in the superstructures which meet the layman’s eye, but also, and more important, in the substructures upon which the archaeologist relies for an accurate reconstruction of the past. Even in recent times, the political and religious struggles for the sovereignty of Jerusalem, as well as the sacred nature of many important areas of the city, have presented barriers to the would-be researcher before he could even reach the archaeological puzzles which modern Jerusalem hides beneath its largely Moslem exterior.
Dr. Kenyon’s book is a most fascinating and absorbing account of the way in which many, though by no means all, of these adverse circumstances were overcome by an international team of officially-sponsored archaeologists, whose thorough campaign of excavations in Jerusalem, beginning in 1961 and ending in 1967 (the year of the June war), has completely revolutionised our knowledge and understanding of the Jerusalem of antiquity. In terms which the non-specialist can easily comprehend, the preface explains how the pioneers of Palestinian archaeology, notably Warren in 1867 and Bliss and Dickie in 18947, were unable, with their primitive methods of tunnelling and shaft-sinking, to give accurate dates to the walls and structures they encountered, or to uncover sufficiently large and meaningful sections of the ancient city to be able to reconstruct a dependable picture of it. It comes as a surprise no doubt to the layman that even as recently as 1961, “the historian … had to recognise that his theories of the growth of Jerusalem were based on very unsound ground”. For this very reason, the recent campaign of excavations (initiated by the British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem and chronicled by Dr. Kenyon) was of great importance, since the perfection of archaeological methods, the development of the science of stratigraphy (dating by stratum-analysis), and particularly the sophisticated use of complex trench-patterns meant that at least some exciting and definitive conclusions about the history of Jerusalem could be expected.
Dr. Kenyon’s account of the discoveries and the conclusions are presented in a most entertaining and readable form. Copiously illustrated with no less than 113 plates, many of them in colour, and with an informative system of marginal references from the text to the plates, the book is divided into ten chapters, each of which covers a specific period of the history of Jerusalem. The results of the excavations are skilfully interwoven with the known and accepted facts about each separate period, and it is a pleasure to read a modern book which accepts the Bible as an accurate historical authority. Wherever the findings of the researchers are at variance with previous theories, or whenever new theories are propounded (sudh as the identification of the Millo of 1 Kings 9:15 with the extensive terraces discovered on the eastern slopes of Ophel), the reader is given every opportunity to assess the evidence for himself because of the dispassionate objectivity of the writer.
It is impossible in few words to recount the details of this rewriting of the archaeological history of Jerusalem, but its conclusions range from the intriguing to the startling; for whilst the investigations have often corroborated widely-accepted theories, they frequently contradict previous assumptions which were based largely upon wishful thinking or intelligent guesswork. The overall conclusions of both the excavators and the book (which are quite categorical in stating that until the time of Herod the Great-37-4 B.C.—Jerusalem occupied only the very small area of the eastern hill Ophel) are in direct opposition to almost everything which has been written on the topography of ancient Jerusalem. The present writer has to admit that he did not at first take kindly to the idea that he stood to lose a perfectly good Bible Class paper on the rebuilding of the walls by Nehemiah!
The facts, however, are clear, and the impartial reader will be grateful for the insight Dr. Kenyon’s book provides not only into the history of Jerusalem in all its stages of development, but also into the fascinating labours of the archaeologist. Nobody who has the least interest in the city which God Himself will ultimately rebuild anew will want to forgo the opportunity this book affords to become familiar with the Jerusalem of old.
Review of “The Early Earth” by John Whitcomb (1972)