Posted on 07/28/2019 1:47:47 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
The dig's archeological team --- co-directed by UNC Charlotte professor of history Shimon Gibson, Rafi Lewis, a faculty member at the University of Haifa and Ashkelon Academic College, and James Tabor, UNC Charlotte professor of religious studies -- has revealed the rumored, but never physically detected, moat-trench the Fatamid defenders dug along the city's southern wall to protect against siege engines - a defense that contemporary accounts claim helped stymie the southern assault.
Through stratigraphic evidence, the archaeologists have been able to confirm the 11th Century date of the 17-meter-wide by 4-meter-deep ditch, which abutted the Fatimid city wall (built in the same place as the current wall near the current Zion Gate), and have also found artifacts from the assault itself, including arrowheads, Crusader bronze cross pendants, and a spectacular piece of Muslim gold jewelry, which is probable booty from the conquest.
In past seasons, the team found remnants of a Fatamid city gate at the site, which, the archaeologists argue, makes the area a likely focal point for the Crusaders' main southern assault on the city wall. Despite reported attempts to fill the trench by the attacking forces, the southern assault was ultimately unsuccessful. The city's defenses were finally breached by a simultaneous operation from the north.
Near the trench, the archaeologists also unearthed an earthquake-damaged Fatamid structure, which was probably already a ruin at the time of the assault. The arrowheads, crosses and jewelry were found on the floor of the structure.
"There was, apparently, an extramural quarter of scattered buildings, outside the city to the south, and we excavated a building that was in a ruinous state, possibly damaged by the earthquake of 1033," Gibson said.
(Excerpt) Read more at eurekalert.org ...
This earpiece, perhaps of Egyptian manufacture, is apparent loot from the First Crusade sack of Jerusalem in July, 1099. Credit: Virginia Withers">This earpiece, perhaps of Egyptian manufacture, is apparent loot from the First Crusade sack of Jerusalem in July, 1099.
Haven’t peeps been counting Crusades for a while now?
Given that a Crusade was labeled #1, who would doubt that it occurred in some fashion
Reading the excerpt may help.
I believe this marked the end of known Jewish presence in Jerusalem until the end of the Crusader kingdom around 1291.
The famous Nachmanides recorded around the end of the Crusader kingdom that 10 Jewish men could not be found in Jerusalem but had to be recruited from far away villages for proper prayers for his pilgrimage.
Isuspect that the literature evidence for The 1st Crusade may amount to way more than a “rumor”.
Again, reading the excerpt may help.
The excavations turned up a building that apparently was ruined by the earthquake of 1033, and like the "Palestinian refugees" today, the ruins were left there unrepaired 66 years later during the siege, and indeed to this day.
Yep. Muslims always considered the Land of Israel to be a southern Syrian hell-hole.
After they got done with it.
Seems odd historians would doubt the chronicler’s account without evidence one way or another. A moat to defend a city under siege sounds like a fairly standard tactic.
I wholeheartedly agree. The Oracle of Delphi was "dubunked" by some French nitwit in the late 19th or early 20th century. He claimed that the surviving ancient descriptions of the temple interior were all made up. Turns out, when some actual scientists and scholars finally decided to check things about at the site about 25 years ago, they found the site in perfect accord with the ancient description. It ain't just the Bible that has been taking it on the chin for the past 170 years...
Interesting and enlightening fact about academia, is that while many in the industry promote and rely on accounts of rape, pillage, and “blood running in the streets” that they accept on face value, they are skeptical of other accounts of the siege without hard evidence.
Another good-sized but still minority opinion is that civilizations never get wiped out due to conquest or plagues, but rather due to vsrious imaginary modern ideas, like "over-specialization".
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