31 BIBLICAL AND HISTORICAL JERUSALEM David and Solomon are silent about the space between the two for- tified quarters, a silence indicating that at the time of writing it was not yet considered a closed and well-defined quarter 24. Archaeologists observed that in the Iron I-early IIa only the summit of the City of David was inhabited and fortified by the Stepped Stone Structure. According to the “modified conventional chronology” (which I support), the construction of this massive structure and the Large Stone Structure above it took place in the third quarter of the tenth century BCE 25. Note that the Book of Kings does not relate the date of fortification of the City of David (in its maximal scope). Archaeologically, the fortification has been dated to the eighth century 26. The date of fortification of the Temple Mount remains unknown. The area south of the Temple Mount was built only since the eighth century onward, which explains its absence from descriptions of pre-exilic Jerusalem 27. As noted above, accounts of building operations in Jerusalem might reflect the vivid memory of the city’s inhabitants. The account that David built a residence in the City of David (2 Sam 5,9) is strongly supported by the texts of Jeremiah and Nehemiah and might reflect a tenth-century reality (of course, the residence might have been expanded and renovated later). I would further suggest that the claim that Solomon founded the temple on the Temple Mount may also reflect a local vivid memory. Initially, the temple was a modest shrine built by the royal dynasty, and it developed gradually, stage 24 Benjamin and Eilat Mazar, who excavated the area south of the Tem- ple Mount, have observed the gap between the Temple Mount’s southern edge and the City of David’s northern edge. See E. MAZAR – B. MAZAR, Excava- tions in the South of the Temple Mount. The Ophel of Biblical Jerusalem (Qedem 29; Jerusalem 1989) 58. 25 A. MAZAR – C. BRONK RAMSEY, “14C Dates and the Iron Age Chrono- logy of Israel: A Response”, Radiocarbon 50 (2008) 159-180; A. MAZAR, “The Iron Age Chronology Debate: Is the Gap Narrowing? Another View- point”, NEA 74 (2011) 105-111. 26 KENYON, Digging up Jerusalem, 83, 130-131; SHILOH, City of David, 12-13, 28; D.T. ARIEL – A. DE GROOT, “The Iron Age Extramural Occupation at the City of David and Additional Observations on the Siloam Channel”, Ex- cavations at the City of David 1975-1985 Directed by Yigal Shiloh. V: Ex- tramural Areas (ed. D.T. ARIEL) (Qedem 40; Jerusalem 2000) 157, 159-163. 27 E. MAZAR – B. MAZAR, South of the Temple Mount, 58-60.