A precise new dating of archaeological sites in Jerusalem supports some of the key historical events described in the Bible, including the settling of the city, a major earthquake and its eventual destruction by the Babylonians, according to a new study.
The research gives an unprecedented chronology of the ancient city that sheds light on its development, said Elisabetta Boaretto , a professor of archaeological sciences at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel, and the senior author of the study, which was published April 29 in the journal PNAS.
The authors studied sediments from human occupations and radioactive-carbon concentrations in charred seeds to determine dates within the time period known as the "Hallstatt plateau," between and B. It may be because lower solar activity during that period produced less of the radioactive isotope carbon — a form of carbon with eight neutrons in its nucleus instead of the usual six, which is used in radiocarbon dating to determine when a sample originated.
The Hallstatt plateau is a key reason why so little of Jerusalem has been radiocarbon-dated, although the city is of great archaeological importance. Related: Mysterious moat discovered in Jerusalem may have been used to divide the biblical city.
The researchers examined samples of seeds and other remains from five sites in Jerusalem's ancient City of David neighborhood, south of the Temple Mount. The new approach applied radiocarbon dating and a group of precise analytical methods collectively called "microarchaeology" to the layers of sediments associated with the seeds and then verified their dates with measurements of atmospheric radiocarbon from the growth rings of trees that grew between and B.
