On the eastern slopes of the City of David, a Middle Bronze Age water system, remnants of a reservoir and a water channel was carbon dated to 1515 BCE. There is no other later evidence of water supply to rooms of the rock-cut-temple. No alternative water system exists, yet despite the absence of later evidence some archaeologists, still insist that the rock-cut-temple, in its present form, should instead be dated to the Iron Age. Academic isolation and over simplification of context, distorts understanding at this complex, ancient location. However, the video below offers the most comprehensive explanation. Before viewing, it's important to illustrate the passage of water as it once flowed to the rooms, more than 3500 years ago (follow the Area U/C map below).
Water passage. Room 2 (center-foreground) Room 1 (upper right-background)
Area U water system leading to Area C rooms (1 and 2)
The video explains that the rock-cut-temple was active up until 1500 BCE (Middle Bronze), then buried, out of site until 700 BCE (Iron), exposed at that time, reburied during wall construction and finally excavated 13 years ago.
Fifty years and tens of millions of dollars have failed to explain 700 years of missing evidence from ancient Jerusalem's eastern slope, at the City of David. The gap perpetuates confusion among archaeologists, who otherwise would prefer to date the significant rock-cut-temple to the Iron Age. You see, between the Middle Bronze (3500 years ago) and Iron Age (2800 years ago) no direct evidence, in the rock-cut-temple, has been discovered and that presents a problem.
Rock-cut-temple on eastern slope after ground cover was finally cleared in 2023. The adjacent house, which was built 20 years ago, on compressed ground cover, is now suspended on steel plates with pilons to bedrock
Around the rock-cut-temple, there is undisputed, carbon dated evidence of occupation and Middle Bronze Age use up until 3500 years ago, then +700 years of nothing, and plenty Iron Age evidence after that. The dearth of Iron Age evidence, starting around 2800 years ago, dominates academic papers and influences narratives about the significant rock-cut-temple, yet this evidence gap, that screams the loudest, is ignored by archaeologists. In this case the absence of evidence proves the evidence!
If not for two samples (#9964/5) of organic matter, trapped below and above plaster layers of a man made channel that once fed water into at least the southern-most rock-cut-room, archaeologists would have a more simplified proof of Iron Age origins.
Sample #9964 lay undisturbed, protected by natural ground cover, above the plaster channel for 3500 years. Sample #9965 was protected by the plaster layers of the channel above it.
At blue line B (map below) the U (Sample #9964) and X (Sample #9965)
"B" marks the excavation site of organic samples, from above and below the plastered water channel. Other samples #9181/9962 (top) and building 1948 (right) dated between 1820-1510 BCE.
Water channel flowed from a reservoir to the bedrock floor. No evidence of an Iron Age water channel and reservoir has been located
The barrage of published Iron Age evidence and the inferred dating of the rock-cut-temple is refuted by carbon dated samples at several locations. However, most powerful are #9964 and #9965 two 3500 year old, Middle Bronze Age, organic samples that date the water channel construction and last use. Similar plaster layers, on the bedrock, in the western, rear end of a storage room, present insufficient proof of Iron Age shaping of bed rock. Such plaster remnants, dated to the Iron Age, may have been laid by Iron Age occupiers of the homes constructed above the bedrock.
A solution is not easily forthcoming because absence of evidence is an insufficient academic standard of proof. The water channel remains the strongest proof of use and there is no other evidence of water service to the temple. Unfortunately, +700 years after the water channel was last used, in preparation for construction of the City's eastern defensive wall, the rock-cut-temple was cleared to the bedrock to accommodate the 4 meter wide wall. Immediately west, the water channel was recently traced, running, from the remains of a reservoir (at blue B), underneath Iron Age homes to the southernmost rock-cut-room. However, archaeologists won't confirm that the channels Middle Bronze Age construction is directly linked to construction of the rock-cut-temple. Instead, they promote an alternative, unproven, theory that the water channel was cut (at blue B) by constructors and at the southern rock-cut-room during its Iron Age construction. This hypothesis only exacerbates the absence of an Iron Age water system.
Clearance of the area by Iron Age wall constructors, remains the best explanation for the absence of direct evidence, but what, if any direct evidence, was cleared from the bedrock at that time remains a mystery and whether the rock-cut-temple had been buried under ground cover, for +700 years, before the wall constructors cleared it, remains inconclusive.
Any suggestion that #9964, and other samples #9181 and #9962 survived, in situ, above ground, for +700 years, while Iron Age Area U and rock-cut-temple was apparently constructed, exposed or in active use is preposterous. More likely the last use of the rock-cut-rooms is also tied to the date of sample #9964 and construction of the rock-cut-rooms dated to sample #9965 sometime between 1615 BCE and 1880 BCE or prior.
Accumulated ground cover concealing the rock-cut-temple site as it was in 2012. Adjacent house built on compressed ground cover.
Promotion of an academic theory for Iron Age construction of the rock-cut-temple is further refuted by surviving evidence immediately north (#9181 and #9962), of sample #9964 (from the water channel) and east, from below building 1948, dated to 1820 BCE and in mortar 1.2m above bedrock dated to 1605 BCE. These additional samples strongly increase the probability of a Middle Bronze Age origin and suggest that a significant Iron Age construction of the rock-cut-temple would have disrupted at least #9181 and #9962 laying bare on the surface of these excavated areas.
Academia faces significant challenges in admitting a Middle Bronze Age origin because of Iron Age bias in tangential data and the Biblical alignment to the archaeological last use, defined by at least sample #9964. The period of carbon dating overlaps patriarch Jacob who, Jewish commentators attest stayed briefly on Mount Moriah. According to Biblical chronology Jacob's first encounter on Mount Moriah took place in 1573 BCE. Then, he and his family arrived on Mount Moriah in 1553 BCE and left the region in 1523 BCE. Jacob immigrated to Egypt, where his descendants remained for 250 years before they returned to their ancestral land. The overlapping 100 year use of the water channel (1535 BCE) with time of Jacob makes this discovery remarkable particularly because of its potentially exciting context to the rock-cut-temple and matzevah found within the temple location. According to the Bible Jacob erected a matzevah at this location (Genesis 35:14).
The matzevah, "standing stone" or anointing pillar at the rock-cut-temple.
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