Radiocarbon dating and microarchaeology untangle the history of Jerusalem's Temple Mount: A view from Wilson's Arch

Abstract

Radiocarbon dating is rarely applied in Classical and Post-Classical periods in the Eastern Mediterranean, as it is not considered precise enough to solve specific chronological questions, often causing the attribution of historic monuments to be based on circumstantial evidence. This research, applied in Jerusalem, presents a novel approach to solve this problem. Integrating fieldwork, stratigraphy, and microarchaeology analyses with intense radiocarbon dating of charred remains in building materials beneath Wilson's Arch, we absolutely dated monumental structures to very narrow windows of time-even to specific rulers. Wilson's Arch was initiated by Herod the Great and enlarged during the Roman Procurators, such as Pontius Pilatus, in a range of 70 years, rather than 700 years, as previously discussed by scholars. The theater-like structure is dated to the days of Emperor Hadrian and left unfinished before 132-136 AD. Through this approach, it is possible to solve archaeological riddles in intensely urban environments in the historical periods.

Middle Bronze Age Jerusalem: Recalculating Its Character and Chronology

“…The dating assemblage (Boaretto 2015) for chronology is based on several proxies as burned sediments, ash composition, phytoliths, phosphate concentration, and control samples of above and below sediments, as described in Weiner (2010) and Boaretto (2015). This is the approach used for all the chronology studies at the D-REAMS laboratory (see Regev et al 2014Regev et al , 2020aRegev et al , 2020bWeiner et al 2020). All the samples, excluding the ones retrieved from baulk PQ5, were recovered from a horizontal excavation and not picked from a section.…”

HORIZONTAL WATERMILL CHRONOLOGIES BASED ON 14C DATING OF ORGANICS IN MORTARS: A CASE STUDY FROM JARASH, JORDAN

“…This method has been successfully applied to the dating of lime mortars and plasters with macrocharcoal inclusions from the study area (Lichtenberger et al 2015; Philippsen and Olsen 2020; Daugbjerg et al 2021, 2022; Passchier et al 2021; Boyer 2022). The method has also been employed in dating construction materials from other Jordanian archaeological sites (Al-Bashaireh 2013; 2017) and globally (Berger 1992; Van Strydonck et al 1992; Vega et al 2013; Ponce-Antón et al 2020; Regev et al 2020; Daugbjerg et al 2022; Brabcová et al 2023). The effectiveness of 14 C dating and the correct interpretation of the results is influenced by OM particle size, the number of OM fractions present and their sources.…”