The modern Old City is not the old old city. During the First Temple period, when David conquered Jerusalem from the Jebusites and Solomon built the temple on a threshing floor, the city itself included only what is now the Jewish quarter, the temple mount itself, and an area to the south of the modern Old City. This area is now called Ir David, the City of David, and is largely an archaeological excavation and park adjacent to Arab East Jerusalem.


The al-Aqsa mosque - view from Ir David


The muzzein tower for the al-Aqsa mosque


The Southern Wall of the Temple Mount, which is threatening to collapse because they dug too deep in the soil next to it. There's currently a whole team of architects trying to keep it from falling over.

Dug-out walls from the First Temple Period


Exciting, isn't it? Well, it's better in real life.


The ruins of an ancient house


The wall that probably held up David's palace


The ancient walls of Jerusalem


The Mount of Oliver - view from the City of David


The water is found in the valley spring but Jerusalem itself is on a mountain, so they dug a tunnel so they could get to the water in times of siege.


More excavated tunnels leading down


This is Warren's Shaft. So this was the first excavation in this area by a British archaeologist named Dr. Warren, and he found this hole, which at the bottom leads to the water source. So they thought that this was where everyone got their water in the First Temple Period - by lowering a jug with a rope into the hole. But in the last two years they've excavated more and found this whole huge staircase twenty feet away that leads straight down to the water and is huge, and is in fact much older than Warren's Shaft, which was actually dug in a later period. Now the Archaeological Society is racing to change all of it's educational material to reflect this new information.


Our guide, pointing to the water source at the bottom of the huge stairs they discovered. The water today is too salty to drink, and they have two theories about this - either the water has become more salinated over the last three thousand years, or back then people could drink saltier water.


Burial caves in the Kidron Valley, which is modern-day East Jerusalem