New Discoveries from Excavations inside Jaffa Gate of Old City Jerusalem

The recent archaeological excavations conducted in the Old City of Jerusalem in the vicinity of the Jaffa Gate revealed a number of significant ancient architectural features associated with assemblages of artifacts of exceptional importance for the research of Jerusalem. There was exposed a segment of the upper aqueduct found integrated with a Byzantine period city wall. There was also discovered a section of the Byzantine Decumanus, the main east to west street of the city. Above it stood a spacious building from the Ayyubid and Mamluk periods that may have included part of the western gate structure. The outer walls of the moat of the Tower of David’s Citadel came to light in its respective stages from the time that the medieval moat was first dug until the 12th century. Within it there were found the ruins of a part of the city wall that was demolished on the eve of the visit of the German Kaiser Wilhelm II and his wife in the year 1898, alongside modern remains from the Jordanian rule of the city. These finds shed fresh light on a number of central questions that have been discussed since the dawn of the research of Jerusalem in the 19th century, for instance, the route of the city wall, the system of roads and the water supply in the Second Temple, Roman and Byzantine periods.