City of David - Modern Period

Modern Period

Mid-19th century photographs taken by Scotsman James Graham (photographer) (1853–57) show the ridge of Ir David as being devoid of housing. It is terraced and planted, apparently, with olive trees.

Modern settlement on the ridge began in the City of David in 1873-1874, when the Meyuchas family, a Jewish rabbinical and merchant family that had lived in Jerusalem since their expulsion from Spain, moved a short distance outside the city walls to a house on the ridge. During the latter stages of the Mandate era the nearby Arab village of Silwan expanded up the ridge of the City of David. After the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, the whole area fell on the eastern side of the Green Line under Jordanian control. Arab families continued to live on the ridge of the City of David and to build houses there after 1967. From 1968 to 1977 the Israel Exploration Society started the first excavations at the Ophel, lead by Benjamin Mazar and Eilat Mazar.

The right to control both the archaeological and the residential aspects of the City of David is hotly contested by Israelis and Palestinians. There is a proposal to turn most of the area into an archaeological park, and to restore a part of the Kidron Valley currently occupied by Palestinians as a park to be called the Garden of the King.