2,700-Year-Old Tower Found?

Life goes on in Jerusalem. And so does excavation. BAR readers will recall the eighth-century B.C. wall built by King Hezekiah of Judah to protect the city from an attack by Sennacherib of Assyria, which was recently discovered by Ronny Reich and Eli Shukron on the eastern flank of the City of David.^a Surviving in places to a height of 16 feet, the wall was apparently part of a double wall system, because there is another, long-known, eighth-century B.C. wall about 120 feet higher up the slope.

The excavators admit they found the new wall by accident, rather than by design. But once they stumbled on it, they naturally wanted to extend their excavation of it. And extend it they have—for a total distance of 100 feet to the south.