244 DR. E. W. G. MASTERMAN^ ON RECENT DISCOVERIES 



and the City of David was upon the long narrow spur, usually 

 called " Opliel," which runs south of the " Temple area " and 

 terminates just ahove the " Virgin's fount," opposite the village 

 of ISiiwLui (Siloam). The arguments by which this newer view 

 is maintained may be briefly reviewed under two headings: 

 (1) Those from the site as compared with similar sites in 

 Palestine, and (2) those irom direct statements in the Bible. 



(1) When Jerusalem first nppears in secular history, under 

 the name llrusalem, in the Tell el Amarna letters it is as a 

 walled and fortified city, the chief town of a district and as a 

 place which, it may be inferred, was of importance to the 

 king of Egypt (Amenhotep IV.) to hold if he wished to retain 

 the country. Indeed, in Letter II from Urusalem (Petrie's 

 arrangement) the Governor Abd Khiba writes : " The King 

 has set his name in Urusalem for ever, he cannot surrender his 

 territory.'' This is interpreted by Winckler to mean that the 

 King, who with his change of religion had assumed the name 

 Akhen-aien (Glory of the sun disc), had made this city a shrine 

 of Aten or the Sun-disc, and had in that sense placed his name 

 and staked his reputation in the place. This is speculative, but 

 it would be interesting if it could be proved that the one 

 Egyptian creed which came nearest to monotheism should have 

 been enshrined in the place from which the belief in one God 

 went forth in a later age as a precious gift to the world. 



]\Iore important for the present argument is the fact that in 

 the before-mentioned correspondence are many references also to 

 Gazri (Gezer) and to Megidda (Megiddo), and from them there 

 can be no doubt that in this era both these cities were larger, 

 better fortified, and more important than Urusalem. The hill 

 on which the modern view now locates the original Zion and 

 David's City is just the kind of hill which we find selected 

 everywhere for fortified towns. Those who have visited the 

 really ancient sites such as Gezer, Socho, Merashah, etc., will be 

 at once struck with their similarity of the original site of " Zion." 

 It was surrounded on three sides by deep valleys, and was 

 almost without doubt separated by a depression from the 

 liiglier hill to the north. The sides of the hill must in many 

 parts have been perpendicular rocky scarps. At the foot near 

 the southern extremity was the one true spring of Jerusalem, 

 known in later times as Gihon and to-day as ' Ain iimm ed dcraj 

 (the Spring of the Mother of the Steps) or " the Virgin's fount." 

 The ])resence of the spring — for Judaea a very copious one — at 

 the foot of this hill makes it certain that the original settlement 

 must have been in the neighbourhood ; it is inconceivable and 



