Overview
- Excavators from the Israel Antiquities Authority and Tel Aviv University announced on Monday that large charred wooden beams were found collapsed in a First Temple–period building at the Givati Parking Lot in the City of David.
- Field directors say melted plaster from the fire covered and sealed the burned timbers, preserving the wood in place for roughly 2,600 years.
- Archaeologists report the beams contain an unusually large number of growth rings and are removing and analyzing rings in the lab to pursue high-resolution dendrochronological dating.
- Excavation leaders interpret a sealed destruction layer as a deliberate memorial left by later residents, and Israel’s Heritage Minister has publicly framed the find as tangible evidence of ancient Jewish presence.
- If laboratory dating confirms the field reading, the find could narrow the long-standing multi-century dating uncertainty for the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem and give researchers new tools to refine regional chronologies.