Jerusalem first appears in Egyptian texts from the 18-19 centuries B.C., and then in the Amarna letters of the 14th century B.C. Archaeologists have found pottery remains showing habitation from the 3rd millennium B.C., and as a heavily walled city from c. 1800 with houses on terraces on the slopes of the hills on which the city is set.
Jerusalem is a biblical city situated between the Hinnom valley on the west and the the Kidron valley on the east. It was when the Biblical king David brought the ark of the covenant to Jerusalem that the city became important for Judaism, and later, Christianity. The Temple built by David and his son housed the ark. Jerusalem and the Temple were destroyed by the Babylonians in 587/586. Under Persian rule, in 538, those exiled by the Babylonians were allowed to return. Both the city and the Temple were rebuilt. In 198 B.C., the Seleucids started their domination of Jerusalem. In 167 B.C. Antiochus IV Epiphanes had the city walls of Jerusalem torn down. The Maccabees refortified the city of Jerusalem between 160 and 134. Both city and Temple were destroyed again by the Romans in A.D. 70.
Sources:
- Tessa Rajak "Jerusalem" The Oxford Classical Dictionary.
- Jerome Murphy-O'Connor, Barbara Geller Nathanson "Jerusalem" The Oxford Guide to People and Places of the Bible.
