City of David (Hebrew: (,
Ir David; Arabic: ,
Madīna Dāwūd) is the archaeological site of ancient Jerusalem of the pre-Babylonian exile era It is located beneath the neighborhood of Wadi Hilweh (Arabic: وادي حلوه), and beneath the southern city walls of old
Jerusalem. The remains at the site include several water tunnels,
one of which was built by King
Hezekiah and still carries water, several pools including the
Pool of Siloam known from the Old and New Testaments, and here or at the adjacent
Ophel scholars expect to find, or claim to have found, the remains of the
Acra, a fortress built by
Antiochus Epiphanes to subdue ancient Jerusalem. City of David archaeologist
Eilat Mazar believes that a so-called
Large Stone Structure she has discovered at the upper area of the site and tentatively dated to the tenth to ninth century BC, may be the palace of king
David. Not far from that excavation area a number of
bullae (seal impressions) were unearthed, bearing the names of
Yehucal son of Shelemiah and
Gedaliah son of Pashhur, two officials mentioned in the
Book of Jeremiah.