Israeli archaeologist, Eilat Mazor uncovered what may be the 3,000-year-old foundation walls of the palace of biblical King David in the City of David, near Jerusalem's Old City.
The foundations for the monumental building are large boulders. Its walls are more than six feet thick and extend at least 98 feet. Also found at the site were a governmental seal of an official named Jehucal or Jucal, who is mentioned in the Book of Jeremiah, and numerous shards of Iron Age II pottery dating from the 10th to 9th centuries, corresponding to the time of David and Solomon.
The find has sparked a lively debate among archaeologists about whether the structure is actually the palace of the fabled Jewish king David. If true, it "could turn out to be the archaeological find of the century," according to the Jerusalem Post. All agree that it is a rare and important major public building from a period that has been under-represented in archaeological records.
"This is a very significant discovery, given that Jerusalem as the capital of the united kingdom [Jewish] is very much unknown," says Gabriel Barkay, an archaeologist from Israel's Bar-Ilan University. "This is one of the first greetings we have from the Jerusalem of David and Solomon, a period which has played a kind of hide-and-seek with archaeologists for the last century."
