The City of David is where Jerusalem began. This narrow ridge south of the Temple Mount is the site of the original Jebusite city that King David conquered around 1000 BCE, making it his capital and transforming a small hilltop fortress into the center of the Israelite kingdom. “David then took up residence in the fortress and called it the City of David” (2 Samuel 5:9). Archaeological excavations here have uncovered 3,800 years of continuous habitation, and the discoveries continue to reshape our understanding of biblical Jerusalem.
David’s Conquest
The Jebusites who held the city before David were so confident in their fortifications that they taunted the Israelite army: “You will not get in here; even the blind and the lame can ward you off” (2 Samuel 5:6). David responded by sending his men through the tsinnor, a word variously translated as “water shaft,” “tunnel,” or “gutter.” Joab, David’s general, was the first to enter, and the city fell. The identity of the tsinnor has been debated for over a century, and the excavation of ancient water systems in the City of David has only made the debate more interesting.
The Stepped Stone Structure
The most imposing visible remain in the City of David is the Stepped Stone Structure, a massive retaining wall of stone blocks descending the eastern slope of the ridge. The structure, over 15 meters high and dating to approximately the 10th century BCE, though some archaeologists date the earliest phases to the 12th–11th centuries BCE, may have supported a royal building at the top of the ridge. Some archaeologists identify a large structure above it as David’s palace; others dispute both the dating and the identification. The debate is fierce, but the scale of the construction is not in dispute: whoever built it commanded significant resources.
The Gihon Spring
The Gihon Spring, emerging from a cave at the base of the eastern slope, is the reason Jerusalem exists. In a landscape with almost no water, the Gihon was the only perennial spring for miles, and every settlement on this ridge, from the Chalcolithic period to the present, depended on it. The spring’s name comes from the Hebrew word for “gushing,” and its intermittent flow (it surges several times a day) may have given it a reputation for mystery and divine power. The anointing of Solomon as king took place at the Gihon: “Zadok the priest took the horn of oil from the sacred tent and anointed Solomon. Then they sounded the trumpet and all the people shouted, ‘Long live King Solomon!’” (1 Kings 1:39).
The Canaanite Water System
Long before Hezekiah carved his tunnel, the Canaanite (Jebusite) inhabitants of Jerusalem built an earlier water system to access the Gihon Spring from inside the city walls. The system, discovered by the British Royal Engineers officer Charles Warren in the 1860s and known as Warren’s Shaft, consists of a tunnel leading from inside the city to a vertical shaft that drops down to the level of the spring. The Canaanites could lower buckets down the shaft and draw water without leaving the protection of the walls.
This water system may be the key to one of the most famous conquests in the Bible. When David besieged the Jebusite city, the inhabitants mocked him, saying that even the blind and the lame could defend the walls. David challenged his men: “Anyone who conquers the Jebusites will have to use the water shaft” (2 Samuel 5:8). The Hebrew word used is “tzinnor,” and many scholars identify it with the water system beneath the city. Joab, David’s commander, apparently climbed up through the water system and entered the city from below, capturing Jerusalem and making it the City of David. Whether Warren’s Shaft is the actual tzinnor is debated (some archaeologists question whether the shaft was accessible in David’s time), but the water system is genuine, and visitors can walk through the Canaanite tunnel and look down the vertical shaft to the spring below.
Hezekiah’s Tunnel
The most famous feature of the City of David is Hezekiah’s Tunnel, a 533-meter water channel carved through solid rock in the late 8th century BCE. King Hezekiah, facing an Assyrian invasion under Sennacherib, ordered the tunnel built to divert water from the Gihon Spring to a protected pool inside the city walls: “It was Hezekiah who blocked the upper outlet of the Gihon spring and channeled the water down to the west side of the City of David” (2 Chronicles 32:30).
Visitors can wade through the tunnel today, knee-deep in cool spring water, following the same route the water has taken for 2,700 years. The tunnel is narrow (about 60 centimeters wide in places), dark, and approximately 20 to 30 minutes long. The experience of walking through a tunnel carved by hand in the 8th century BCE, with only a flashlight and the sound of water, is one of the most unforgettable in Jerusalem.
In 1880, a boy playing near the tunnel’s exit discovered the Siloam Inscription, a carved text in ancient Hebrew describing the moment the two teams of diggers, working from opposite ends, met in the middle: “While the hewers were still lifting up the pick, each toward his fellow, and while there were still three cubits to be hewn through, the voice of a man was heard calling to his fellow.” The original inscription is in the Istanbul Archaeological Museum; a cast is displayed at the Israel Museum.
The Pool of Siloam
At the southern end of the City of David, the Pool of Siloam was a large public pool where pilgrims immersed before ascending to the Temple. In the Gospel of John, Jesus healed a blind man and told him to wash in the Pool of Siloam: “Go, wash in the Pool of Siloam. So the man went and washed, and came home seeing” (John 9:7). The pool was rediscovered in 2004 during construction work and is being excavated.
The Siloam Dam
In 2025, archaeologists announced the discovery of a massive dam at the Pool of Siloam, the largest dam ever found in Israel and the earliest discovered in Jerusalem. The dam, approximately 12 meters high, 8 meters wide, and at least 21 meters long, was built between 805 and 795 BCE during the reigns of the biblical kings Joash or Amaziah (2 Kings 12, 14). The dating, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, reveals that Jerusalem’s water engineering was far more advanced than previously understood, nearly a century before Hezekiah built his famous tunnel.
The Pilgrimage Road
The Pilgrimage Road, opened to the public in January 2026 after 13 years of excavation, is a 600-meter stone-paved street dating to the Second Temple period. The road ran from the Pool of Siloam at the southern end of the City of David up to the Temple Mount, and it was the main route that pilgrims walked when ascending to the Temple for the festivals of Passover, Shavuot, and Sukkot. Walking the road today, underground, beneath the modern streets of Silwan, is one of the most extraordinary archaeological experiences in the world.
Solomon’s Anointing at the Gihon Spring
The Gihon Spring, the water source that made Jerusalem habitable, is also where one of the most dramatic moments in the story of the monarchy took place. When King David was old and dying, his son Adonijah declared himself king without David’s approval. The prophet Nathan and Bathsheba rushed to David and reminded him of his promise that Solomon would succeed him. David acted immediately: “King David said, ‘Call in Zadok the priest, Nathan the prophet and Benaiah son of Jehoiada.’ When they came before the king, he said to them: ‘Take your lord’s servants with you and have Solomon my son mount my own mule and take him down to Gihon. There have Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet anoint him king over Israel. Blow the trumpet and shout, May King Solomon live!’” (1 Kings 1:32-34). Solomon was anointed at the Gihon Spring, at the foot of the City of David, and the shouts of celebration were so loud that Adonijah’s party heard them across the valley and fled. The spring where Solomon became king is the same spring that visitors see today.
The Givati Parking Lot Excavation
At the entrance to the City of David, adjacent to the Dung Gate, one of the most important active excavations in Jerusalem is taking place at what was once a public parking lot. The Givati excavation has uncovered layers spanning from the Iron Age to the Ottoman period, including a monumental structure from the Hellenistic period, a large Roman-era building, Byzantine mosaics, and finds from the Crusader and Mamluk periods. The excavation is significant because it sits at the junction between the City of David, the Temple Mount, and the Old City, a crossroads that has been in continuous use for over 3,000 years. Visitors can watch the excavation in progress from viewing platforms above the dig.
Visit with Hoshen Tours
The City of David is one of the most exciting archaeological sites in Israel, and it is growing every year. On our guided tours, Hoshen Tours includes Hezekiah’s Tunnel, the Pilgrimage Road, and the excavations in every Jerusalem itinerary. Bring water shoes for the tunnel, a sense of wonder for the Pilgrimage Road, and the knowledge that the city you are walking through is the city that David conquered, Solomon adorned, Hezekiah defended, and Jesus knew.