Stepped Stone Structure - Biblical Archaeology Encyclopedia

Overview

A stepped stone revetment covering the upper eastern slope of the City of David ridge. Macalister and Duncan (1923-1925) exposed its top and called it the 'Jebusite Ramp'. Kenyon in the 1960s exposed more of it, with houses built over it and the terraces underneath; Yigal Shiloh excavated it as his Area G from 1978. Amihai Mazar (2006) divided the complex into five components: the underlying terraces (Component 1), the stepped mantle itself (Component 2), and three structures in Kenyon's Trench I (Components 3-5) that are not physically connected to the first two.

Iron Age houses (among them the 'Burnt Room House') were later built against and over its lower part. Its top is joined by the city wall and towers that Macalister and Duncan called the 'Maccabean Tower' and 'Great Tower'. Eilat Mazar, excavating on the summit to the west from 2005, argued that the stepped structure and her 'Large Stone Structure' were one building complex of c. 1000 BCE, which she identified with David's palace.

The date is contested. Finkelstein, Herzog, Singer-Avitz and Ussishkin (2007) argue the mantle has at least two building phases: a lower part of small stones running south-north, possibly late Iron IIA or early Iron IIB (9th-8th century BCE), and an upper part of larger stones oriented northwest that is bonded to the Hasmonaean city wall and was built or rebuilt in the late Hellenistic period. The identification with the biblical 'Millo' (a word built on the Hebrew root m-l-' , 'to fill') is a proposal; nothing on the stones names it.

What the evidence shows

Macalister and Duncan (1926) exposed the upper edge and labelled it the 'Jebusite Ramp' (their Pl. V), with a southern 'Great Tower' and northern 'Maccabean Tower' beside it (Finkelstein et al. 2007: 143).
Duncan recorded a fissure in the rock scarp at this spot 'filled up with great boulders... for a considerable distance under the foundations of the great Jebusite Eastern Rampart' (Macalister and Duncan 1926: 52, quoted by Finkelstein et al. 2007: 150).
The stepped mantle overlies a system of terraces (Component 1); Kenyon found Iron I pottery under those terraces (Steiner 1994, as reported by Finkelstein et al. 2007: 148).
In the mantle, the lower courses are of smaller stones running south-north; the upper third is of larger stones oriented northwest - the reverse of normal retaining-wall practice (Finkelstein et al. 2007: 151, Fig. 3).
Shiloh observed that 'the line of the "First Wall" and its towers integrated the top of the stepped stone structure' (Shiloh 1984: 30, quoted by Finkelstein et al. 2007: 153).
Houses were built over the lower mantle. Cahill (2003) reported Stratum 14-13 pottery (10th-9th century on the traditional scheme) on the lower floors of the 'Burnt Room House'; Kenyon (1974: 137) and Shiloh (1984: 28) had dated these houses to the second half of the 7th century BCE (Finkelstein et al. 2007: 151-152).
Parts of the complex are modern: Shiloh marked a 'modern retaining wall' at the northern tower, Steiner (2001: 51) notes the northern ramp was partly restored with cement by the Department of Antiquities of Palestine, and the present flat top may be a restoration (Finkelstein et al. 2007: 143, 148).
Kenyon found large building blocks and a proto-Ionic capital at the bottom of her Square A XVIII, just north of the structure (Kenyon 1963: 16, cited by Finkelstein et al. 2007: 154).
No dimension figures for the structure were found in the sources read for this entry.

Open questions

Date and unity of the mantle. Eilat Mazar (BAR 32:1, 2006, and her 2007 preliminary report, as summarized by Finkelstein et al. 2007: 148) treats the stepped structure and the Large Stone Structure as one Iron IIA complex of c. 1000 BCE, bracketed by Iron I pottery beneath the terraces and 10th-century pottery on the first floor of a house built into the slope (Cahill 2003). Finkelstein et al. (Tel Aviv 34, 2007: 148-153) answer that no clear physical connection between the two structures has been established, that the present top of the stepped structure seems to be a modern restoration, and that the mantle's lower and upper parts differ in stone size and orientation, so the lower part may be 9th-8th century and the upper part Hasmonaean. Kenyon (1974: 192-194) had already suggested a Hellenistic date for the upper part (as reported by Finkelstein et al. 2007: 153).
Floors of the Burnt Room House. Cahill (2003: 56-66) reads the 10th-9th century sherds as lying on the house's lowest floors, which would date the mantle below to before that. Finkelstein et al. (2007: 151) reply that they are sherds from ten loci, not whole vessels, and may come from fills beneath upper floors, noting that neither Kenyon nor Shiloh saw 10th-9th century occupation in these houses.
Is it the Millo? The proposal rests on the name (from the Hebrew root m-l-', 'to fill') and on the structure being a built fill/revetment. The biblical texts give no location or description for the Millo beyond Jerusalem and the city of David; the identification is an interpretation, not something the stones record.
Relation to the 2024 radiocarbon series. Regev et al. (PNAS 2024) dated 103 samples from City of David contexts and found almost 20% (18 dates) fall in the 12th-10th centuries BCE, and extensive building on the southeastern ridge in the 9th century. The samples came from Areas C/U, E and the Givati lot, not from the stepped structure, so they do not date it directly.

Since 2024

2024-04Regev et al. (PNAS 121:19) publish 103 radiocarbon dates from Iron Age Jerusalem: 18 fall in the 12th-10th c. BCE and 9th-century building is widespread on the southeastern ridge. None comes from the stepped structure itself. [6]
2024-06Jodi Magness, Jerusalem through the Ages (OUP), treats the ridge-top remains as the Jebusite citadel 'and perhaps the palace of David' (chapter abstract). [7]

Sources

Finkelstein, I., Herzog, Z., Singer-Avitz, L. and Ussishkin, D. 2007. "Has King David's Palace in Jerusalem Been Found?" Tel Aviv 34(2): 142-164. doi:10.1179/tav.2007.2007.2.142 link study
Shiloh, Y. 1984. Excavations at the City of David I, 1978-1982: Interim Report of the First Five Seasons. Qedem 19. Jerusalem: Institute of Archaeology, Hebrew University. link excavation report
Kenyon, K. M. 1974. Digging Up Jerusalem. New York: Praeger (London: Benn). link excavation report
Mazar, E. 2006. "Did I Find King David's Palace?" Biblical Archaeology Review 32(1): 16-27, 70. link excavation report
Cahill, J. M. 2004. "Jerusalem in David and Solomon's Time." Biblical Archaeology Review 30(6). link study
Regev, J., Gadot, Y., Uziel, J., Chalaf, O., Shalev, Y., Roth, H., Shalom, N., Szanton, N., Bocher, E., Pearson, C. L., Brown, D. M., Mintz, E., Regev, L. and Boaretto, E. 2024. "Radiocarbon chronology of Iron Age Jerusalem reveals calibration offsets and architectural developments." PNAS 121(19). doi:10.1073/pnas.2321024121 link study
Magness, J. 2024. Jerusalem through the Ages. New York: Oxford University Press. Ch. 3 "Jebusite Jerusalem (1050 bce)", pp. 42-62, doi:10.1093/oso/9780190937805.003.0003; ch. 4 "Israelite Jerusalem (930 bce)", pp. 63-87, doi:10.1093/oso/9780190937805.003.0004. link study

Corrected from the earlier edition of this page

Old entry says Macalister discovered it and treats it as an Israelite/Davidic fortification. Macalister and Duncan (1923-1925) exposed only its upper edge and called it the 'Jebusite Ramp', i.e. pre-Israelite in their reading; Kenyon (1960s), Shiloh (1978-1985) and E. Mazar (from 2005) supplied most of what is known.
Old entry gives 'approximately 20 meters long and up to 6 meters high'. No source read for this entry gives these figures; they are dropped rather than repeated.
Old entry calls it 'carefully hewn limestone blocks'. The published descriptions read here describe a stepped stone mantle over stone-and-fill terraces, with smaller stones low and larger stones high; hewn masonry is not stated.
Old entry presents it as an 'authentic 10th century BCE fortification' of David. Its date is contested: Iron I to Iron IIA for the original build (E. Mazar, Cahill), 9th-8th century for the lower mantle and late Hellenistic for the upper courses (Finkelstein et al. 2007); Kenyon herself proposed a Hellenistic date for the upper part.
Old entry calls it a defensive fortification. The excavators describe a retaining mantle supporting the slope; its fortification role is inferred, and its top is bonded to a much later (Hasmonaean) wall.
Old entry cites 2 Samuel 5:17 (Philistines come up against David), which has nothing to do with the Millo or the structure; Millo appears in 2 Sam 5:9 and 1 Chr 11:8, not 11:5.
Old entry's 'Scholarly Consensus' box removed per house rules.

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