A Byzantine and Early Islamic Building along the Southern Tyropoeon Valley

Part of a building (Building 900) was uncovered along the Tyropoeon Valley. Three phases of use were identified: the first two dating to the Byzantine period, and the last phase, to the Abbasid period. The plan of the building, along with the quality of construction and some of the small finds, indicate the affluent status of the building’s residents in both periods. The finds from this excavation, together with those of previous excavations in the area, shed light on the residential neighborhood that development on the lower half of the slope of the City of David in the Tyropoeon Valley, beginning from the sixth–seventh centuries CE. The presence of pig remains in the Abbasid-period building may attest that its inhabitants were Christian, or that the prohibition on pork consumption was not yet enforced in this early phase of the Early Islamic period.