New research sheds light on the millennia-old mystery of why Jerusalemites from 2,100 years ago carefully dismantled a large fortification wall — more massive than the current walls of the Old City — and buried the spot under a kingly palace.

An impressive section of Jerusalem’s fortification wall from the second century BCE has been uncovered on the grounds of the Tower of David complex in the Old City, the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) and the Tower of David Jerusalem Museum announced on Monday. The remains, over 40 meters (about 130 feet) long and about five meters (16 feet) wide, were found in the area known as the Kishle complex, which during the British Mandate was used as a prison, including for members of the Jewish underground.

Around 134 BCE, three decades after the Hanukkah story and establishment of the Hasmonean dynasty, Jerusalem was attacked again by another Greek king named Antiochus, who bore the same name as the Hanukkah villain. According to the first-century CE Roman-Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, to save Jerusalem, the Hasmonean leader John Hyrcanus I agreed to destroy the city’s fortifications and pay Antiochus VII Sidetes 3,000 talents of gold that he withdrew from King David’s sepulchre.

“He broke down the fortifications that encompassed the city. And upon these conditions Antiochus broke up the siege, and departed,” Josephus writes in the 13th book of “The Antiquities of the Jews.” (8:3)

Josephus’s narrative offers a possible explanation for the historical destruction of the remains of the wall revealed in the excavation, Dr. Amit Re’em, IAA excavation co-director and chief archaeologist for the Jerusalem District, told The Times of Israel.

“What we saw in the excavation, and this is really interesting, is that the wall, this massive fortification, was deliberately destroyed to the ground, to the base of the wall,” Re’em said in a telephone interview.........

© The Times of Israel