Evidence of Biblical Earthquake Found in Jerusalem

TEL AVIV (Sputnik) - Israeli archaeologists detected ruins of an 8th century BCE earthquake described in the Bible during excavations in the City of David, Jerusalem earliest settlement, Israeli Antiquities Authority (IAA) said.

"The famous earthquake that occurred in Israel some 2800 years ago is mentioned in the Bible, proofs were earlier detected in several parts of Israel, but researchers think that it is the first time they managed to identify remains, proving that the earthquake also happened in Jerusalem," the IAA stated.

A layer of ruins, including smashed kitchen utensils and vessels, was found. Since no signs of fire are visible, the building destruction was not deliberate, it was caused by the earthquake that shook Israel in the eighth century BCE.

“When we excavated the structure and uncovered an eighth-century BCE layer of destruction, we were very surprised, because we know that Jerusalem continued to exist in succession until the Babylonian destruction, which occurred about 200 years later. We asked ourselves what could have caused that dramatic layer of destruction we uncovered. Examining the excavation findings, we tried to check if there is a reference to it in the biblical text. Interestingly, the earthquake that appears in the Bible, in the books of Amos and Zechariah, occurred at the time when the building we excavated in the City of David collapsed,” IAA excavation directors Dr. Joe Uziel and Ortal Chalaf said.

The archaeologists found fragments of vessels and small tables.

The findings of the excavations will be presented by the Antiquities Authority at a regular archaeological conference at the Megalim Institute, scheduled for early September.