“Did I Find King David’s Palace?” Archaeologist Eilat Mazar headlined with that bold question in the January-February 2006 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review. Her lengthy article summarized her 2005 archaeological excavation at the northern tip of the City of David and the evidence she had uncovered.
Dr. Mazar’s article and her excavations in the City of David have drawn a spectrum of responses from the scholarly and scientific communities as well as the public. Some are convinced, others are uncertain, and some are dismissive of, even hostile to, Dr. Mazar’s discovery and identification.
Unfortunately, much of the reporting on Dr. Mazar’s archaeology in the City of David and on the Large Stone Structure is superficial, unfairly critical and dismissive. While there are nuances in the points of discussion around the Large Stone Structure, the mainstream media tend to downplay and even ignore the scientific evidence and historical record Dr. Mazar unearthed and rely too heavily on the theories put forward by anti-Bible, anti-David minimalist critics.
Here is the archaeological evidence that led Dr. Mazar to conclude she had discovered King David’s palace.
Pinpointing the Location
Almost 10 years before she began digging in the City of David, Dr. Mazar wrote an article explaining why she believed King David’s palace was located in the northern end of the City of David. The article, “Excavate King David’s Palace!”, appeared in the January-February 1997 Biblical Archaeology Review.
“[A] careful examination of the biblical text combined with sometimes unnoticed results of modern archaeological excavations in Jerusalem enable us, I believe, to locate the site of King David’s palace,” she wrote. “Even more exciting, it is in an area that is now available for excavation. If some regard as too speculative the hypothesis I shall put forth in this article, my reply is simply this: Let us put it to the test in the way archaeologists always try to test their theories—by excavation.”
Dr. Mazar’s hypothesis relied on clues found in the Bible, specifically 2 Samuel 5. This chapter describes David’s capture of Jerusalem (verses 6-9) and the construction of his new palace (verse 11). A verse further in the chapter particularly caught Mazar’s eye: “And when the Philistines heard that David was anointed king over Israel, all the Philistines went up to seek David; and David heard of it, and went down to the hold” (verse 17).
This verse contains several details that Dr. Mazar found notable. First, the word “hold” refers to the original walled fortress of Jebus (Hebrew: metsudah). It is named the metsudah of Zion during David’s attack described in verse 7. Verse 9 records that after David conquered the metsudah, he immediately moved into it. Verse 11 records that not long afterward, the Phoenician King Hiram sent skilled laborers and “built David a house.”
King David clearly had a palace. So, Dr. Mazar asked, where exactly was this palace situated?
The fortress-city of Jebus covered only about 48 dunams (12 acres), primarily comprising the southern sloping ridge of Mount Zion. Archaeologists have revealed a general idea of the extent of Jebus and estimate that around 500 people lived within its walls. Given that this was such a compact and densely populated area, there would not have been sufficient room inside the city for a grand palace. Did David build his new palace just outside the original walls?
As explained, verse 17 shows that after David settled into his new palace, he heard reports of an imminent Philistine attack and went down into the metsudah, or fortress/hold. David’s palace, then, was built on an elevated location, above the fortress, and just outside the city walls. (Later, David’s palace would be surrounded by a fortified city wall. The Bible records that David’s son Solomon and other kings built additional walls around Jerusalem as the city expanded further north.)
Based on verse 17, Dr. Mazar believed that David’s palace would be found just outside the northern wall of Jebus, in an elevated position on Mount Zion.
When she discussed this theory with her grandfather, former Hebrew University president Prof. Benjamin Mazar, just before his death in 1995, he reminded her of an impressive royal Phoenician-style pillar capital that had been discovered by archaeologist Kathleen Kenyon during excavations in the City of David in 1962. This, he suggested, was further evidence that David’s palace would be situated on the northern part of Mount Zion. (You can read more about this capital in our article Ashlars and Capitals: A New Style of Monumental Architecture.)
Kenyon’s report stated that the capital, of a type belonging to the early Israelite monarchy, was found partway down the eastern side of the hill, directly below the location where Mazar believed David’s palace would be found. Evidently, the capital had fallen from a palatial structure above. Did this pillar capital belong to David’s palace?
Dr. Mazar compiled her research and presented her theory in that 1997 Biblical Archaeology Review article. The theory met with little enthusiasm from the academic world. Some archaeologists questioned the merits of excavating where Mazar suggested, doubting that she would find anything, let alone something monumental. Earlier excavations in the City of David, they reasoned, had uncovered all that there was; there was nothing left to excavate.
Dr. Mazar was undeterred. While previous excavations in the City of David had unearthed plenty of later period walls, she believed that Iron iia remains would still be discovered below these structures. More than anything, Mazar, like any good scientist, wanted to put her theory to the test. She wanted to dig.
But she lacked financial support for the proposed excavation. It wasn’t until nearly a decade later, in 2005, that she received funding from Roger and Susan Hertog and Eugene and Zara Shvidler. Finally, she could dig!
The Stepped Stone Structure
When Dr. Mazar published her article in 1997, she was most interested in excavating the area north of the famous Stepped Stone Structure in the City of David. But by the time she received funding, the only area available for excavation was a little further south, just above and slightly north of the Stepped Stone Structure.
The Stepped Stone Structure in the City of David is one of the largest, most impressive archaeological features in all of Israel. Situated on the east side of Mount Zion, this monumental terraced stone edifice is 20 meters (65.6 feet) high and can be easily seen from the Mount of Olives on the east side of the Kidron Valley.
The structure was first excavated by R. A. Macalister in the 1920s and has been excavated multiple times since, including by Kathleen Kenyon (1960s), Yigal Shiloh (1980s) and Dr. Eilat Mazar. Since the 1970s, archaeologists believed it was constructed during the Jebusite period or perhaps earlier, with some additions occurring in the ninth century b.c.e.
Dr. Mazar believed, like many of her colleagues, that the area just above the Stepped Stone Structure belonged to the northern part of the Jebusite fortress that David “went down to” from his palace. “Eventually they gave me the option to excavate in a place where I thought the [Jebusite] fortress of Zion was going to be revealed,” she told the Armstrong Institute of Biblical Archaeology in late 2019. “I thought I was going to miss King David’s palace. But I excavated where they let me excavate. It’s not like I could choose. I took what I got.”
The Large Stone Structure
Dr. Mazar began digging in mid-February 2005. Within two weeks, her team had unearthed massive walls. They were staggered by their size. One wall running east-west was 30 meters (98 feet) long and up to 3 meters (10 feet) wide. Another, even larger wall was uncovered during the next season of excavations (summer 2006). This wall ran north-south and was 6 meters (20 feet) wide.
That’s not all. This massive north-south wall directly abutted the top of the Stepped Stone Structure. A small excavation in the summer of 2007 revealed that this wall not only touched the Stepped Stone Structure but interlocked with it, indicating that both edifices were part of the same building.
This was a crucial discovery. “The fact that the two structures were part of the same construction was an astonishing discovery for us,” Dr. Mazar said. “Laid before our very eyes was a structure massive in proportions and innovative in complexity. It bears witness to the impressive architectural skill and considerable investment of its builders, to the competency of a determined central ruling authority, and most notably to the audacity and vision of that authority.”
Dr. Mazar also discovered the reason the Stepped Stone Structure was constructed in the first place. The bedrock at the top of Mount Zion contained a large void. If the ruler of the fortress wished to extend his city further to the north along the ridge of Mount Zion, this gap would have to be bridged by a massive foundation fill so a sturdy structure could be built on top of it. This would require, to use Dr. Mazar’s words, the “audacity and vision” of a “determined central ruling authority” to devote enormous resources to build such a brace, descending down into the Kidron Valley.
This, then, is what we see with the foundational Stepped Stone Structure and building above: the construction of a gigantic palatial structure with walls up to 6 meters (20 feet) wide, woven into a 20-meter-high (66-foot-high) Stepped Stone Structure that provides a firm foundation down the steep eastern edge of the City of David. This joint building effort constitutes the tallest known structure in all Israel until the time of Herod the Great, nearly 1,000 years later. The height and mass of the Stepped Stone Structure testifies to the outstanding size and magnificence of the building it supported.
Dr. Mazar called the newly discovered massive building, built directly atop and interlocking with the Stepped Stone Structure, the “Large Stone Structure.” This structure could only be built with a significant amount of wealth, infrastructure and power. This raised a crucial question: Who built it? Could it have been King David?
Was This Really the Palace?
To determine if the Large Stone Structure was David’s palace, Dr. Mazar needed more than a large building underpinned by a gigantic supporting structure. She needed to date the building. The standard way to do this is to use material remains, especially pottery and carbon samples, that relate to the structure.
During her 2005–2008 excavations, Dr. Mazar’s team uncovered a significant amount of pottery and many carbon samples related to the Large Stone Structure. When studied in the laboratory, the material found directly under the Large Stone Structure dated to the last part of the Iron i period—around the 11th century b.c.e. This was the last period in which the Jebusite Canaanites occupied Jerusalem, just before David conquered the city.
These fragments—alongside the lack of any structural remains dating to this period—indicated that the Jebusites had left this area open and undeveloped, just outside the northern extent of their city.
In the 2006 season, Dr. Mazar found evidence of a localized metal industry inside the lowest levels in the building. This layer included smelting hearths, numerous ceramic crucibles and blowpipes, as well as a large amount of copper dross and waste associated with the creation of metal objects. Dr. Mazar showed that this was evidence of the construction phase of the building.
The artifacts discovered abutting and directly associated with the Large Stone Structure—and thus the Stepped Stone Structure—were scientifically dated to around late Iron i to early Iron iia: the decades surrounding 1000 b.c.e.
The combined dating evidence left a window of less than 100 years in which this massive building could have been constructed. And directly within that time period is the biblical account of the reign of King David.
Based on her discoveries, Dr. Mazar found that the evidence fit precisely with the biblical account of David’s palace: She had found a massive, 3,000-year-old building right where the Bible says David’s palace should be.
There is certainly room for scholars, based purely on the archaeological dating, to suggest that it was built immediately before King David’s time. Dr. Mazar recognized that this was possible in her preliminary report published in 2009. But she also explained why it was highly unlikely. While the dating of the structure could support that conjecture, logic does not. Why would the Jebusites invest time and resources building a massive palatial structure outside their fortress city—and at a time when the Israelites were growing in power and preparing to conquer the Jebusite city nestled in Canaan’s heartland? This and other theoretical attempts to explain away the structure are much more of a stretch, and take far more imagination, than pairing it up with the straightforward biblical account.
Such a grand structure built on new ground, outside the defensive fortification, is hardly the work of a Jebusite population in its twilight years. The more rational conclusion is that the construction indicates a new, bold, confident vision for Jerusalem—such as the biblical description for King David’s palace.
Additional Evidence
Alongside the location and dating, a number of smaller discoveries also serve to identify the Large Stone Structure as King David’s palace. The Bible records that the Phoenician King Hiram sent stone masons to work on David’s palace (2 Samuel 5:11). This fits with the discovery of the beautifully worked Israelite-Phoenician-style stone capital that Kenyon found below the now-uncovered Large Stone Structure.
Other royal items were discovered in and around the palace, including ornate ivory utensils and the remains of exotic foods, likewise indicating the royal nature of the structure.
The Bible records that after King David died, his son Solomon built another palace further north of the City of David (1 Kings 7:1). Future kings ruled from this northern palace, which became known as the “upper house of the king” (Nehemiah 3:25). But the palace David built continued to function as a royal building and was still identified as the “house of David” in the days of Nehemiah (Nehemiah 12:37).
Jeremiah 36:12 describes an officer going “down” into a scribal chamber near the “king’s house” and meeting with several officials, including Gemariah the son of Shaphan. Excavations of the Stepped Stone Structure in the 1970s by Prof. Yigal Shiloh revealed a scribal chamber at the base of the structure containing 51 bullae. The building became known as the “House of Bullae.” One of the bullae contained an inscription reading “Belonging to Gemariah, son of Shaphan.” The House of Bullae, then, is a close link to the “scribe’s chamber” near the “king’s house.”
Within and around the Large Stone Structure, the bullae of two princes were discovered by Dr. Mazar in 2005 and 2007. The first reads: “Belonging to Jehucal, son of Shelemiah, son of Shovi.” The second reads: “Belonging to Gedeliah, son of Pashur.” These royal princes are described together in Jeremiah 38:1 as the enemies of the Prophet Jeremiah. It would be fitting to find evidence of princes around a royal palace structure.
In excavations to the west of the Large Stone Structure, two other notable bullae were found in the 2019 excavations of Prof. Yuval Gadot: One that was inscribed, “Belonging to Nathan-Melech, Servant of the King,” belonged to one of King Josiah’s royal chamberlains (2 Kings 23:11). The other, “Belonging to Ikar, son of Mattaniah,” may have belonged to a prince and son of King Zedekiah (whose original name was Mattaniah).
Dozens of other bullae from royal officials and princes scattered in and around the Large Stone Structure and the nearby scribal building together indicate that the Large Stone Structure was a royal edifice, a palace.
A Sensational Discovery
When Dr. Mazar released her discovery to the public in 2005, it generated attention around the world and even made the front page of the New York Times. However, some scholars decried it as sensationalism.
Dr. Mazar’s remarkable find was greeted with some skepticism because she committed two cardinal sins: First, she discovered what she was looking for; second, her science was informed and influenced by the Bible.
Regarding the first point: Remember that Dr. Mazar initially believed David’s palace to be slightly farther north than where she was approved to excavate. Like other archaeologists, Mazar believed the area directly above the Stepped Stone Structure was likely part of the Jebusite fortress that was built well before David was born. Not until the discovery was dated did Dr. Mazar change her mind and conclude that the Large Stone Structure was built too late to be the Jebusite fortress—it had to have been constructed during King David’s reign.
“Even when I proposed looking for the remains of King David’s palace at this spot, I did not imagine that the Stepped Stone Structure would form an integral part of it,” Dr. Mazar wrote in 2009. “Indeed, reality surpassed all imagination.” Integral to science is the development and testing of a theory. Finding what you are looking for is not a sign of bias; it’s a sign of a good theory.
As for the second point: It is important to note that while Dr. Mazar did consider the Hebrew Bible a valuable resource for studying history, she was not religious and did not pursue a religious agenda. “Archaeology cannot stand by itself as a very technical method,” she said. “It is actually quite primitive without the support of written documents. Excavating the ancient land of Israel and not reading and getting to know the biblical source is stupidity. I don’t see how it can work. It’s like excavating a classical site and ignoring Greek and Latin sources. It is impossible.”
Dr. Mazar dug up stones, walls and pottery. If she found that they matched the biblical record, she did not shy away from making the obvious associations (as some archaeologists admittedly do out of fear of their work being branded “sensationalist” and discredited by their fellow academic).
To Dr. Mazar, the Bible recorded ancient history in Jerusalem relating to ancient structures in Jerusalem. “I am interested in history, not just about stones. I am interested in stones that can speak. I don’t care about stones that have nothing to talk about—that are speechless. Who cares about speechless stones? Let the stones speak,” she so often said.
Following her initial 2005–2006 excavation, some of Dr. Mazar’s colleagues rejected the conclusion that she had discovered King David’s palace. Some said the Large Stone Structure was from 700 years later. Some said it was totally unrelated to the Stepped Stone Structure.
Others held fast to the original theory and maintained that it was a Jebusite fortress. One professor dismissed Dr. Mazar’s discovery, falsely claiming she hadn’t done carbon dating. She most definitely had—we should know; we helped in her excavations. But this is an example of the careless dismissal of Dr. Mazar’s evidence—without evidence of their own.
These conclusions are the hasty speculations and assumptions based on limited evidence, in some cases made by individuals who have never led excavations in Jerusalem. Dr. Mazar’s conclusion came from years of theorizing and leading actual excavations that produced a growing body of supporting evidence.
It is true that 3,000 years of habitation and development make it impossible to distinguish the precise design and layout of David’s palace. However, the main outer walls dated to the time of King David are readily visible at the site.
In recent years, since the conclusion of the 2008 excavation, biblical minimalists have started to acknowledge that although the walls are not inscribed with King David’s personal signature, they are inarguably the foundations of a massive building within the (albeit contested) time frame supported by pottery reading, carbon dating, many traditional archaeologists and the Bible.
If you follow the evidence furnished by both archaeology and the historical record (the Bible), the most logical explanation is that the Large Stone Structure and the Stepped Stone Structure form one massive edifice: the palace of David, king of Israel.
“There may be times when it will take 10 years for people to adjust to, support and even accept the idea,” Dr. Mazar said, “but I am not going to wait for them.” She estimated that only 20 percent of the royal building has been uncovered.
Dr. Mazar concluded her 2006 Biblical Archaeology Review article by writing: “The biblical narrative, I submit, better explains the archaeology we have uncovered than any other hypothesis that has been put forward. Indeed, the archaeological remains square perfectly with the biblical description that tells us David went down from there to the citadel. So you decide whether or not we have found King David’s palace.”
