20/07/2013
JERUSALEM: Archaeologists claim to have found a
3,000-year-old palace and royal storehouse in Jerusalem belonging to Biblical
King David. The two buildings are the largest structures standing during the
10th-century BC to have been found in the territory of the Kingdom of Judah.
Two royal public buildings were uncovered by researchers of
the Hebrew University and the Israel Antiquities Authority at Khirbet Qeiyafa,
a fortified city in Judah dating to the time of King David and identified with
the biblical city of Shaarayim.
One of the buildings was identified by the researchers,
professor Yossi Garfinkel and Saar Ganor as David's palace, and the other
structure served as an enormous royal storeroom.
"Khirbet Qeiyafa is the best example exposed to date of
a fortified city from the time of King David," Garfinkel and Ganor said.
They said the southern part of a large palace that extended
across an area of 1,000 square metre was revealed at the top of the city.
The wall enclosing the palace is 30 metres long and an
impressive entrance is fixed in it through which one descended to the southern
gate of the city, opposite the Valley of Elah.
Around the palace's perimeter were rooms in which various
installations were found — evidence of a metal industry, special pottery
vessels and fragments of alabaster vessels that were imported from Egypt,
archaeologists said.
The palace is located at the centre of the site and controls
all of the houses lower than it in the city. From here one has an excellent
vantage looking out into the distance, from as far as the Mediterranean Sea in
the west to the Hebron Mountains and Jerusalem in the east.
Much of this palace was destroyed around 1,400 years later
when a fortified farmhouse was built there in the Byzantine period. A pillared
building 15 metres long by 6 metres wide was exposed in the north of the city,
which was used as an administrative storeroom, archaeologists said.
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