Where was the City of David?

Question

Accepted Answer

The City of David was the narrow ridge that runs south from the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, between the Kidron valley on the east and the central valley, the Tyropoeon, on the west; today it lies in Silwan, just outside the southern wall of the Old City. It was the oldest Jerusalem, the Jebusite town that David took about 1003 BC. The map's point stands on the ridge above the Gihon spring, about 0.5 km south of the map's point for Mount Moriah and about 0.7 km east of today's Mount Zion in a straight line. History Globe has an article on the City of David and a question on when David took Jerusalem; this answer keeps to where it was. The name begins with the conquest: “David took the strong hold of Zion: the same is the city of David”, and “David dwelt in the fort, and called it the city of David. And David built round about from Millo and inward.” David was buried there, and Solomon brought the ark up “out of the city of David, which is Zion” to the Temple on the hill to the north, which shows that the two were different places. After the exile Nehemiah's builders repaired the wall by the pool of Siloah “unto the stairs that go down from the city of David”, at the southern foot of the ridge. Josephus already took the higher western hill for David's stronghold, and for centuries tradition placed the City of David there, on the hill now called Mount Zion, where David's tomb is still shown. Excavators from Charles Warren in 1867 to Raymond Weill in 1913 returned it to the eastern ridge: it is the only hill beside a perennial spring, the Gihon, and the Bible's own topography, from the spring to the stairs and the Siloam pool, fits it. The ridge was small, about 5 ha; most scholars accept this placing, while the age of the great stone structures on its summit, whether of David's time or later, is disputed.