The Broad Wall

Overview

A stretch of massive Iron Age city wall uncovered by Nahman Avigad in the early 1970s in the Jewish Quarter, on the hill west of the Temple Mount. Its width - about seven metres - earned it the name 'Broad Wall' after Nehemiah 3:8 and 12:38, which mention a 'broad wall' in Jerusalem.

The find showed that by the 8th century BCE the fortified city had spread from the narrow City of David ridge onto the Western Hill. The wall was built across the remains of earlier houses, which were cleared to make room for it; Avigad connected that with Isaiah 22:10, 'the houses have ye broken down to fortify the wall'.

Avigad attributed the wall to Hezekiah's preparations against Assyria (2 Chr 32:5). In 2024 a radiocarbon study of Iron Age Jerusalem argued that the westward spread of the city had begun by the 9th century BCE and that the major 8th-century fortification works it dated belong to the late reign of Uzziah rather than Hezekiah. That study dated other structures; it did not publish dates from the Broad Wall itself.

What the evidence shows

• Stone wall about 7 m wide, c. 65 m of unbroken length exposed, preserved up to c. 3.3 m high.
• Located on the Western Hill (today's Jewish Quarter), west of the Temple Mount - outside the older City of David ridge.
• Built over and through earlier domestic structures that were razed along its line (Hebrew University 'Jerusalem Mosaic' text on the Jewish Virtual Library).
• Excavated as part of Areas A, W and X-2, published in the Jewish Quarter final report vol. I (Geva ed. 2000).
• No inscription; no dated object in the wall itself was published in the sources cited here.
• Regev et al. (PNAS 2024), 103 radiocarbon dates from five Jerusalem areas: westward expansion under way by the 9th c. BCE (Building 100, Givati Parking Lot); a new eastern-slope fortification after the mid-8th-century earthquake, attributed to late Uzziah.

Open questions

• Hezekiah or Uzziah? Avigad attributed the wall to Hezekiah's preparations before the 701 BCE Assyrian campaign (as reported in the Hebrew University's Jerusalem Mosaic text); the attribution leans on the late-8th-century context and on the match between the demolished houses and Isa 22:10 / 2 Chr 32:5. Avigad 1983 and the 2000 final report were not available for this entry, so the pottery argument has not been checked against them directly. Regev, Gadot, Uziel, Boaretto et al. (PNAS 121/19, 2024) write that 'the major building project of Jerusalem's 8th-century BC fortifications was previously assigned to King Hezekiah ... based on our chronology, these activities can now be associated with the latter years of King Uzziah' - but their samples come from the City of David and the Givati Parking Lot. The Times of Israel (30 Apr 2024) reported the study as redating 'the wall' to Uzziah; the published paper text does not mention the Broad Wall. Whether the Western Hill wall moves with the eastern-slope wall is not settled by direct dates.
• Israel Finkelstein circulated 'Observations on the article Regev et al.' in May 2024 challenging parts of the radiocarbon interpretation (seen as a listing only; not read).
• Who lived inside it? Summaries of Avigad's work tie the Western Hill's growth to refugees after Assyria took the northern kingdom (720s BCE). The 2024 dates for 9th-century building on the western side push the start of expansion earlier; the refugee explanation remains an inference about why the city grew, not something the wall itself shows.

Since 2024

• 2024-04Regev et al. (PNAS) date Jerusalem's westward expansion to at least the 9th c. BCE and reassign the city's big 8th-century fortification works from Hezekiah to late Uzziah; the samples are from other areas, not from the Broad Wall. [3]
• 2024-04Press coverage (Times of Israel) presents the study as moving 'the wall' from Hezekiah to Uzziah. [4]
• 2026-03Gadot's A Historical Archaeology of Jerusalem (SBL Press) includes a chapter on the Western Hill fortifications (published; content not read). [6]

Sources

1. H. Geva (ed.), Jewish Quarter Excavations in the Old City of Jerusalem, Conducted by Nahman Avigad, 1969-1982, Vol. I: Architecture and Stratigraphy: Areas A, W and X-2. Final Report (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 2000), 296 pp., ISBN 965-221-040-4 link excavation report
2. N. Avigad, Discovering Jerusalem (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1983), ISBN 0840752997 link excavation report
3. J. Regev, Y. Gadot, J. Uziel, O. Chalaf, Y. Shalev, H. Roth, N. Shalom, N. Szanton, E. Bocher, C. L. Pearson, D. M. Brown, E. Mintz, L. Regev & E. Boaretto, 'Radiocarbon chronology of Iron Age Jerusalem reveals calibration offsets and architectural developments,' PNAS 121.19 (2024) e2321024121. DOI 10.1073/pnas.2321024121 link study
4. G. Fiske, 'New carbon-dating techniques enable "absolute chronology" of First Temple-era Jerusalem,' The Times of Israel, 30 April 2024 link study
5. 'Jerusalem Archaeological Sites: The Broad Wall,' Jewish Virtual Library, text from The Jerusalem Mosaic (Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1995) link study
6. Y. Gadot, A Historical Archaeology of Jerusalem (Atlanta: SBL Press, 2026), ch. 'Fortifications on the Western Hill', pp. 21-30. DOI 10.2307/jj.40545267.10 link study

Checked against new publications through 2026-09.