The Walls of Jerusalem: From the Canaanites to the Mamlukes.

• Author: Tushingham, A.D.

For students of Jerusalem, Wightman's publication of the 1964-66 excavations at the Damascus Gate, The Damascus Gate, Jerusalem: Excavations by C.-M. Bennett and J. B. Hennessy at the Damascus Gate (Oxford: B.A.R., 1989), should be well known and guarantee that this volume will have been meticulously researched, clearly written, and well illustrated. It is. He adduces all the available archaeological and literary evidence, even providing transliteration of foreign texts where such treatment can clarify his argument. And the present volume includes eighty-nine in-text figures in addition to the plates.

In his foreword (p. iii) Wightman sets the year 1990 as the limit of his research. The last four years have produced additional field work and (most important) more publication of earlier work; the result is confirmation of his study in most respects but modification of generally accepted views in others. At present, the most controversial issue, perhaps, is the extent and dating of the Bronze Age occupation(s) on the earliest site of Jerusalem. A walled town from about 1800 B.C.E. seems certain but how long it lasted and when it was re-occupied by Canaanites before it was captured by David and made his "stronghold" are still matters of dispute.

Yet there are several points in Wightman's text which appear to be misinterpretations of the evidence already available to him. The "megalithic" wall on bedrock discovered in Kenyon's Site H (p. 19, fig. 3:2) is logically considered to be the northern line of the Middle Bronze Age wall traced low down on the eastern slope of the southeastern hill by Kenyon (fig. 3:2, 3) and Shiloh (fig. 3:4, 5). Its sharp turn to the south is interpreted as part of a gate by Wightman. East of the turn, also on bedrock, is a north-south wall (Davidic?) and, on the eastern crest, the casemate wall (p. 33), probably Solomonic. Yet, on page 108, he interprets the same "megalithic" wall to be the foundations for a "barrier wall" - "a great height between the citadel and the...