![]() However, King Solomon expanded the confines of the city northward to include the Temple Mount. In David’s time, the borders of the city did not change from the previous period. The next period Geva considers is the period of the United Monarchy, the time of King David and King Solomon and a couple centuries thereafter (1000 B.C.E. The shaded area reflects the current walled Old City of Jerusalem. Geva estimates the population of the city during this period at between 500 and 700 “at most.” (Previously other prominent scholars had estimated Jerusalem’s population in this period as 880–1,100, 1,000, 2,500, 3,000 still this is hardly what we would consider a metropolis.) Overall, however, the area comprises only about 11–12 acres. As Geva reminds us, even then Jerusalem “was the center of an important territorial entity.” From this period, the area includes a massive fortification system that has recently been excavated. Jerusalem was then confined to the small spur south of the Temple Mount known today as the City of David. (Middle Bronze Age II to Iron Age I, in archaeological terms), the period before the arrival of the Israelites. The first period that Geva considers in his study is from the 18th–11th centuries B.C.E. (In comparison, Rome in the century before Jesus lived is estimated to have had a population of 400,000 tax-paying males-so the entire population must have been about a million.) Geva bases his estimates on “archaeological findings, rather than vague textual sources.” The result is what he calls a “minimalist view.” But whether you accept Geva’s population estimates or those of various other scholars he cites, to the modern observer the ancient city of Jerusalem can only be described as “tiny”- with population estimates at thousands and tens of thousands during many periods of the city’s history. Jewish historian Josephus estimated the dead of Jerusalem at 1,197,000.A new study of Jerusalem’s population in various periods has recently been published by one of Israel’s leading Jerusalem archaeologists, Hillel Geva of Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and the Israel Exploration Society The 9th of Ab: the Temple and Jerusalem are destroyed by the Roman army. ![]() General Titus begins siege of Jerusalem in March. ![]()
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