The fortified gates of King Solomon
The Bible says King Solomon built fortifications in 4 cities: Jerusalem, Hazor, Megiddo and Gezer.
Such fortifications were accompanied by a city gate. Such gates were used for defensive purposes but also for ritualistic ceremonies and juridical practices.
City elders sat in judgement at the gates and also heard the pleas of the poor and needy there.
In recent decades, archaeologists discovered fortifications and six-chambered city gates at Hazor, Megiddo and Gezer.
The eminent Israeli archaeologist Yigael Yadin recognized the fortifications and gates were all constructed in the same way and date to the same period—the period of Solomon.
Yadin argued the archaeological evidence supported the biblical record.
But what about the Jerusalem gate? In 1986 archaeologists Eilat Mazar and her grandfather Benjamin Mazar uncovered a fourth parallel gate structure in Jerusalem.
See below a photograph of the late Eilat Mazar, who spent her distinguished career at Hebrew Univeristy, in front of that gate.
The Jerusalem gate matched the construction formula of the others, in some cases to the nearest inch, suggesting a centralized authority in Solomon’s capital with a blueprint for the construction of such fortified structures as far away as northern Israel.
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