Jerusalem is a city where the ancient and the modern co-exist, a phenomenon that is prominent when constructing new buildings for the capital. As excavations are undertaken, it quickly becomes clear that Jerusalem is built on layers of its own past.

For archeologists, building booms tend to increase the number of excavations. But the recent economic doldrums and the slump in the housing market are now limiting the number of digs in the city. "The drop in housing starts has restricted the number of rescue excavations," says Jon Seligman, Jerusalem regional archeologist for the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA), referring to IAA digs initiated by chance discoveries in the midst of construction projects.

In a city saturated with ancient history, however, not even the wave of unrest and a 36% drop in housing starts over the past year can keep the past from being discovered. Archeological activity in Jerusalem has produced some important finds this past summer, including the remains of Herod the Great's palace and an ancient industrial park in Ir Ganim. These two excavations demonstrate the varied role that archeology plays in the city both for understanding its past and shaping its future.

In the western Jerusalem neighborhood of Ir Ganim, archeology provides a record of daily Jewish life during the First Temple period in what was then a satellite settlement of the capital. Just as important, the excavations came at the initiative of the area's current residents, who volunteered to dig up the link between past and present.

Archeology paints an entirely different picture in the Old City, where finds near the Tower of David illuminate the saga of Herod, King of Judea from 37 to 4 BCE. In addition to his famous renovations of the Second Temple, Herod also constructed a magnificent palace, remains of which have only recently been uncovered.

"In extravagance and equipment, no building surpassed it," wrote first century Jewish historian Flavius Josephus of King Herod's palace in Jerusalem. In his writings, Josephus devotes a large section to the splendor of Herod's royal residence, describing extravagant banquet halls, bed chambers for 100 guests, pools and statues, all decorated in silver and gold. For a long time, Josephus' description was believed to be too fantastic to be true, as no archeological evidence of the palace was ever found. Until now.

"We didn't expect to find such enormous remains," dust-covered IAA archeologist Amit Re'em says as he walks gingerly between the bulwarks, sandbags and ancient walls that cluster the excavations.

The dig is located in the Kishle complex, just south of the Tower of David Museum that guards Jaffa Gate. Constructed in the 19th century on remains of older structures, the Kishle (Turkish for 'soldiers' living quarters'), served initially as a residence for Ottoman military units and later as a jail. Looking up at the ceiling, one can still see the remnants of iron bars, which stretched to the concrete floor until they had to be cut away in order to excavate. The Kishle walls bear graffiti in English, Hebrew and Arabic, indicating the range of prisoners - including members of the pre-State Jewish underground - who spent time in this cold, subterranean structure, where only a few small, above-ground windows near the ceiling let in light.

Re'em was called in about a year ago to excavate the area as part of the Tower of David Museum's construction of a new educational center. "We knew of the fantastic descriptions of the palace given by Josephus," he says, "and the more debris we cleared away, the clearer the picture became."

The picture had been muddied for some time, as over a century of excavations in the Holy City by Israelis, British, Germans and Americans had failed to uncover any significant evidence of Herod's royal residence.

At the center of the fog surrounding the palace lies Herod, King of Judea and one of the most complex figures in Jewish history. He was both a megalomaniac and reliever of famine, a murderer and employer of thousands, a master builder and tomb raider, Jewish and Greek, a friend of the Roman Emperor and ruler of the Jews.

He murdered family members, including his wife and sons, yet he ostensibly abided by Jewish dietary laws, prompting Augustus Caesar to proclaim: "I would rather be Herod's pig than his sons."

The recent excavations in the Kishle add more to our understanding of Herod and his penchant for grand schemes, building on a scale unique in the ancient world.

What Re'em found were two massive, parallel stone walls each measuring 8 meters in width and about 40 meters in length. Judging from scant remains of a continuation of the wall in the adjacent Armenian garden, the massive walls may have originally extended up to 250 meters. Re'em was able to date the walls by the coins and style of pottery fragments found scattered about - all of which pointed to the era of Herod the Great.

The space between the two parallel walls, which stand a few meters apart, was filled with earth, stones and other debris.

"The walls, together with the filling between them, formed part of the foundation of a massive structure. This system of filling, sandwiched between two support walls, created a flat platform on which to build. Judging from our evidence in Josephus, the complex which once stood on top of this platform was likely Herod's palace," says Re'em.

Indeed, Josephus indicates that Herod's palace was located just south of three massive towers constructed at the entrance to the city - remains of which have been found in what is today the Tower of David. Guarding the city gates, the combination of the towers and palace, which was itself fortified with high walls and towers, surely cast a formidable impression as visitors - and would-be attackers - approached Jerusalem in the first century.

Herod's method of changing the land's natural topographic features to create a level surface on which to build is known to us from his other famous projects. In his renovations of the Temple Mount, the King of Judea created an enormous level plaza out of what was once a sloping hill. Herod not only built to impress, he also built to last. What we see today are the remains of the structure and shape that Herod gave to the Temple Mount

A second important find is a water conduit running east to west underneath the two massive palace walls. The tunnel, which is 1.5 meters wide, 7 meters below ground level and perpendicular to the support walls, was part of the complex's drainage system. It began inside the palace where it collected sewage and other waste, carried it westward and then emptied into what is today the Sultan's Pool.

"Josephus wrote about all kinds of fountains, bronze figures which discharged water and trees inside the palace compound, which all required infrastructure to carry water. We shouldn't be surprised to find this finely engineered drainage system here," says Re'em.

While excavations, which were funded by the Tower of David Museum and the Jerusalem Fund, have uncovered the massive foundations and drainage system, no remains from the above-ground section of the royal residence have been found. This too comes as little surprise in light of the history recorded by Josephus.

At the outbreak of the Great Revolt against Rome in the summer of 66 CE, Jewish rebels set fire to the palace. Re'em said that any remains have since been destroyed by successive builders and conquerors, including the Tenth Roman Legion, Byzantines, Mamluks and Crusaders. All of the palace's fine gold and silver fittings were likely looted over the generations.

"All we have here are the foundations; there is no chance that we'll find remains from the actual palace," he says.

But Herod was not the first to build here, and like the Turks after him, he too used previously existing structures to support his projects. Underneath Herod's massive eastern foundation wall, Re'em discovered what has been dubbed the 'Lower Wall.' Herod used the sturdy Lower Wall to support his own construction project. "We don't know exactly how old the Lower Wall is. To be certain, we need to examine the evidence further. All we can say for sure is that it is earlier than Herod's buildings," said Re'em.

The Lower Wall, of which about 20 meters have been revealed, may be attributed to one of two periods. The first, and less likely possibility, is that it is part of a large structure built by descendents of the Maccabees who ruled Judea just before Herod. The complex may have even been the Hasmonean palace, thereby dating the Lower Wall to the second century BCE.

The second, and more likely, possibility, is that the Lower Wall dates to a much earlier epoch - the First Temple period. "It may have dated to the time of King Hezekiah's rule (c.727- 697 BCE)," Re'em suggests. "If that is the case, then we're talking about a very important find, as there is a dispute as to how large Jerusalem was during the First Temple period."

The Lower Wall, he believes, would indicate that during Hezekiah's reign, the city encompassed both the Eastern Hill - which today includes the Temple Mount, its southern extension known as the City of David and the Jewish Quarter, as well as the Western Hill - today's Armenian Quarter, including the Kishle, and Mount Zion south of the present day city walls. Some 'minimalist' scholars, on the other hand, hold that the city was much smaller during Hezekiah's rule, encompassing the Eastern Hill alone. 

"If it is indeed a First Temple period wall, it would be the first evidence of a structure from that period on the Western Hill. But we cannot as yet be sure that it is indeed from the First Temple period," cautions Re'em.

Crowded in the Kishle are also archeological remains from a myriad of other periods, including a series of nine shallow pools dated to the Middle Ages.

"While excavating the pools, we found ceramics and coins dated to the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the period of the Crusaders and the Mamluks. We've excavated similar pools in the Old City, and we know that they were used in coloring cloths and tanning hides - a kind of factory in the Middle Ages," he says.

Backing up Re'em's words are the writings of Benjamin of Tudela, a twelfth-century Spanish Jew whose travels in southern Europe, Asia Minor and the Middle East were passed down to us in his Book of Travels (Sefer ha-Massa'ot). During his stay in Jerusalem, which was then under Crusader rule, Benjamin took note of how the city's few Jewish residents were active in coloring cloth. "There is a strong connection here between the archeological evidence and Benjamin of Tudela's writings," Re'em says.

The Kishle excavations show one side of Jerusalem, that of the intricate planning and grand vision of one of the city's most infamous rulers who, although murderous and tyrannical, built for posterity and is remembered to this day as Herod the Great.

Our past is just underfoot

'The excavations give this neighborhood an identity," says archeologist Rafi Greenberg, standing in front of the Ir Ganim community center. "This area is more than just another section of Jerusalem. It has its own unique ancient history, which the current residents helped discover."

'The excavations give this neighborhood an identity," says archeologist Rafi Greenberg, standing in front of the Ir Ganim community center. "This area is more than just another section of Jerusalem. It has its own unique ancient history, which the current residents helped discover."

The story of the Ir Ganim excavations, which have just seen the end of a third year of digging, is as much about what was found as about who found it. The motivation for the dig came from the community itself - a volunteer effort by the 12,000 residents of this western Jerusalem neighborhood with its many new immigrants.

Volunteers consisted mostly of children taking time from their summer vacation, as well as residents of all ages, including a group from Intel's local offices.

The site covers 12 dunam in the heart of the neighborhood, directly behind the community center.

Unlike the excavations at Herod's palace, the Ir Ganim dig does not evoke massive building projects by historic kings. In fact, there is no trace of ancient Ir Ganim at all in the literary records of Israel.

"Ir Ganim teaches us about everyday life in antiquity, it tells us how people lived and worked in this country thousands of years ago. It fills in the background to the grand events recorded in the Bible and elsewhere," says Greenberg.

Today, the scientific end of the project is a joint venture between the IAA and Tel Aviv University, led by local resident and TAU lecturer Greenberg and his graduate student Gilad Cinnamon, while the digs are supported financially by the Environment Ministry, the Jerusalem Municipality, the Sheli fund, the Tenufa Project, Community Centers Cooperation and the Jerusalem Foundation's Gishur Project.

The most recognizable part of the excavations is its rogem, an artificial stone heap, which can be seen from everywhere in the neighborhood. Unlike a tel, which is a mound formed by successive layers of construction and occupation, the rogem's formation is more of a mystery. The mound consists almost entirely of stones, earth and pottery shards - with little evidence that any dwellings or public buildings were constructed here. As for the reasons why rogems were constructed, "Its anyone's guess," Greenberg says, "many scholars have made many different hypotheses, but the truth is, it remains one big question mark. We don't have any concrete explanations."

While we do not know why the rogem was constructed, we do know when, as it has been dated by its embedded pottery fragments to between the 10th and 6th centuries BCE, the First Temple period.

Greenberg believes that the rogem may have functioned in conjunction with rogems in other settlements within visible distance, such as those in Givat Mesuah to the south and Ramat Rahel to the east. "We're not sure why it was built, but once it was, the local inhabitants likely used it to communicate with people in surrounding neighborhoods that also had rogems, possibly by smoke or fire signals," Greenberg says.

"Essentially, the rogem became a symbol of this area. It gave Ir Ganim a unique identity in antiquity as well."

At the foot of the rogem lies the area excavated over the past three summers. The site bears evidence of continuous usage throughout the First Temple period and the period of the Return from Exile, when the Persians ruled the region (6th to 4th Centuries BCE).

Following the Persian period, there was an occupation gap until the 1st century BCE, the time of the Hasmonean, and later Herodian, rule.

What Greenberg and Cinnamon found was an ancient industrial park where people came to produce wine earmarked for trade purposes. Concentrated in a small area are eight treading floors where grapes were stomped by the workers' bare feet, connected to drainage channels which allowed the grape juice to flow into a collection pit. Inside this pit, all impurities settled to the bottom, and the juice would then flow via a second channel into a second collection pit, which was paved in plaster. The laborers would then scoop up the juice from the plastered collection pit into barrels, and store it in on-site caves for fermentation.

This area was designed for work alone, as no signs of dwellings or burials have been found. In addition, very few signs were found pointing to the production of other commodities for daily use - such as olive oil - further strengthening the notion that ancient Ir Ganim's economy specialized in wine production.

The laborers, according to Greenberg, likely lived in the surrounding valley and commuted to work - Ir Ganim was one of Jerusalem's first industrial parks.

One of the historical events that the Ir Ganim findings bring to life is the Assyrian siege of Jerusalem in 701 BCE, as recorded in the Second Book of Chronicles, 32: 1-23. The excavations unearthed a number of jars - which likely held wine - stamped with a seal reading "For the King."

The king at the time was Hezekiah, and it is possible that the stamps indicate some sort of government-organized system to ration provisions in a time of crisis.

Ir Ganim's wine, it would seem, was a commodity under ration.

"We read about wine in ancient sources all the time. Someone had to produce it," says Greenberg.

Seligman, commenting on the excavations, says: "Projects like Ir Ganim can be carried out in many different Jerusalem neighborhoods - Gilo, French Hill and Ramat Eshkol. They give these newer areas of the city more character, a unique identity.'

The excavations at Ir Ganim show an ancient side to a new neighborhood, that of workers who labored in industry, much like many Jerusalemites do today.