![]() ![]() Geva’s estimate is carefully grounded in archaeological data.Īfter the Babylonian destruction, the few inhabitants who remained in the city (or who returned) lived primarily in the old area of the City of David. Other population estimates of Jerusalem during the nearly 200 years before the Babylonian destruction vary widely-partially because they focus on different time periods. and forced much of its population into exile in Babylon. At its height, the population of Jerusalem at the end of the eighth century B.C.E., according to Geva, was 8,000.Īs a result of the siege of Jerusalem by the Assyrian monarch Sennacherib in 701 B.C.E., Ancient Jerusalem’s population declined to about 6,000, and so it remained until the Babylonians destroyed the city in 586 B.C.E. By that time, settlement also extended northward outside the city walls, all of which expanded the city further. According to some scholars, this increase may have been at least in part due to the influx of refugees from the north after the Assyrian conquest of the northern kingdom of Israel in 721 B.C.E.īy the end of the First Temple period (the First Temple was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 B.C.E.), the walled city of Ancient Jerusalem covered 160 acres. With this addition, more than a hundred acres were added to the city, and the population of the city increased proportionately. This area is well documented archaeologically. In the mid-eighth century B.C.E., the area usually referred to as the Western Hill was added to the city of Jerusalem. (Previously, other scholars had estimated the number of people living in the city at this time as 2,000, 2,500 or 4,500–5,000.) “Some of these people came to reside in the city as a consequence of their official and religious capacities, while others came to seek a livelihood in its developing economy.” Geva estimates the population of the city at this time at about 2,000. “It is likely that Jerusalem attracted new inhabitants of different social classes,” Geva tells us. This increased the size of the city to about 40 acres, but the increase in population was not proportionate since much of this expansion was taken up with the Temple and royal buildings. However, King Solomon expanded the confines of the city northward to include the Temple Mount. ![]() In David’s time, the borders of the city did not change from the previous period. down to about the eighth century B.C.E.). The next period Geva considers is the period of the United Monarchy, the time of King David and King Solomon and a couple centuries thereafter (1000 B.C.E. The shaded area reflects the current walled Old City of Jerusalem. Geva estimates the population of the city during this period at between 500 and 700 “at most.” (Previously other prominent scholars had estimated Jerusalem’s population in this period as 880–1,100, 1,000, 2,500, 3,000 still this is hardly what we would consider a metropolis.) Overall, however, the area comprises only about 11–12 acres. As Geva reminds us, even then Jerusalem “was the center of an important territorial entity.” From this period, the area includes a massive fortification system that has recently been excavated. Jerusalem was then confined to the small spur south of the Temple Mount known today as the City of David. (Middle Bronze Age II to Iron Age I, in archaeological terms), the period before the arrival of the Israelites. The first period that Geva considers in his study is from the 18th–11th centuries B.C.E. ![]() (In comparison, Rome in the century before Jesus lived is estimated to have had a population of 400,000 tax-paying males-so the entire population must have been about a million.) Geva bases his estimates on “archaeological findings, rather than vague textual sources.” The result is what he calls a “ minimalist view.” 1 But whether you accept Geva’s population estimates or those of various other scholars he cites, to the modern observer the ancient city of Jerusalem can only be described as “tiny”-with population estimates at thousands and tens of thousands during many periods of the city’s history. In 2016, a study of Jerusalem’s population in various periods has been published by one of Israel’s leading Jerusalem archaeologists, Hillel Geva of Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and the Israel Exploration Society. ![]()
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