Radiocarbon chronology of Iron Age Jerusalem reveals calibration offsets and architectural developments.

Reconstructing the absolute chronology of Jerusalem during the time it served as the Judahite Kingdom's capital is challenging due to its dense, still inhabited urban nature and the plateau shape of the radiocarbon calibration curve during part of this period. We present 103 radiocarbon dates from reliable archaeological contexts in five excavation areas of Iron Age Jerusalem, which tie between archaeology and biblical history. We exploit Jerusalem's rich past, including textual evidence and vast archaeological remains, to overcome difficult problems in radiocarbon dating, including establishing a detailed chronology within the long-calibrated ranges of the Hallstatt Plateau and recognizing short-lived regional offsets in atmospheric C concentrations.

and dysentery in Iron Age Jerusalem (7th-6th century BCE).

The aim of this study was to determine if the protozoa that cause dysentery might have been present in Jerusalem, the capital of the Kingdom of Judah, during the Iron Age. Sediments from 2 latrines pertaining to this time period were obtained, 1 dating from the 7th century BCE and another from the 7th to early 6th century BCE. Microscopic investigations have previously shown that the users were infected by whipworm (), roundworm (), sp.

Residue analysis evidence for wine enriched with vanilla consumed in Jerusalem on the eve of the Babylonian destruction in 586 BCE.

The article presents results of residue analysis, based on Gas Chromatograph Mass Spectrometer (GC-MS) measurements, conducted on 13 ceramic storage jars unearthed in the Babylonian destruction layer (586 BCE) in Jerusalem. Five of the jars bear rosette stamp impressions on their handles, indicating that their content was related to the kingdom of Judah's royal economy. The identification of the original contents remains is significant for the understanding of many aspects related to the nutrition, economy and international trade in the ancient Levant.

The Earth's magnetic field in Jerusalem during the Babylonian destruction: A unique reference for field behavior and an anchor for archaeomagnetic dating.

Paleomagnetic analysis of archaeological materials is crucial for understanding the behavior of the geomagnetic field in the past. As it is often difficult to accurately date the acquisition of magnetic information recorded in archaeological materials, large age uncertainties and discrepancies are common in archaeomagnetic datasets, limiting the ability to use these data for geomagnetic modeling and archaeomagnetic dating. Here we present an accurately dated reconstruction of the intensity and direction of the field in Jerusalem in August, 586 BCE, the date of the city's destruction by fire by the Babylonian army, which marks the end of the Iron Age in the Levant.

Radiocarbon dating and microarchaeology untangle the history of Jerusalem's Temple Mount: A view from Wilson's Arch.

Radiocarbon dating is rarely applied in Classical and Post-Classical periods in the Eastern Mediterranean, as it is not considered precise enough to solve specific chronological questions, often causing the attribution of historic monuments to be based on circumstantial evidence. This research, applied in Jerusalem, presents a novel approach to solve this problem. Integrating fieldwork, stratigraphy, and microarchaeology analyses with intense radiocarbon dating of charred remains in building materials beneath Wilson's Arch, we absolutely dated monumental structures to very narrow windows of time-even to specific rulers.

Isolation and Characterization of Live Yeast Cells from Ancient Clay Vessels.

Ancient fermented food has been studied mainly based on residue analysis and recipes and reconstruction attempts were performed using modern domesticated yeast. Furthermore, microorganisms which participated in fermentation were studied using ancient-DNA techniques. In a recent paper, we presented a novel approach based on the hypothesis that enriched yeast populations in fermented beverages could have become the dominant species in storage vessels and their descendants could be isolated and studied today.

Isolation and Characterization of Live Yeast Cells from Ancient Vessels as a Tool in Bio-Archaeology.

Ancient fermented food has been studied based on recipes, residue analysis, and ancient-DNA techniques and reconstructed using modern domesticated yeast. Here, we present a novel approach based on our hypothesis that enriched yeast populations in fermented beverages could have become the dominant species in storage vessels and their descendants could be isolated and studied today. We developed a pipeline of yeast isolation from clay vessels and screened for yeast cells in beverage-related and non-beverage-related ancient vessels and sediments from several archaeological sites.

Ancient urban ecology reconstructed from archaeozoological remains of small mammals in the Near East.

Modern rapidly expanding cities generate intricate patterns of species diversity owing to immense complexity in urban spatial structure and current growth trajectories. We propose to identify and uncouple the drivers that give rise to these patterns by looking at the effect of urbanism on species diversity over a previously unexplored long temporal frame that covers early developments in urbanism. To provide this historical perspective we analyzed archaeozoological remains of small mammals from ancient urban and rural sites in the Near East from the 2nd to the 1st millennium BCE, and compared them to observations from modern urban areas.

An ancient relation between units of length and volume based on a sphere.

The modern metric system defines units of volume based on the cube. We propose that the ancient Egyptian system of measuring capacity employed a similar concept, but used the sphere instead. When considered in ancient Egyptian units, the volume of a sphere, whose circumference is one royal cubit, equals half a hekat.