Black Obeslisk of Assyrian King Shalmaneser, 9th century BCE depicting ancient King of Israel Jehu mentioned in the Bible (2 Kings, chapters 9-10)The Jews exaggerated their history. Solomon had no mines. The mines belonged to Egypt and the to the Edomites. Much of what is attributed to Solomon was built by Omri.. Exodus is a myth and so it Noah and the battles of Joshua.
Israel has some of the finest archaeologists i the world and yet you persist ....
Ancient Jerusalem: The Village, the Town, the City
Ancient Jerusalem made such an enormous impact on Western civilization that it’s hard to fathom how small its population really was.www.biblicalarchaeology.org
excerpt:
The first period that Geva considers in his study is from the 18th–11th centuries B.C.E. (Middle Bronze Age II to Iron Age I, in archaeological terms), the period before the arrival of the Israelites. Jerusalem was then confined to the small spur south of the Temple Mount known today as the City of David. As Geva reminds us, even then Jerusalem “was the center of an important territorial entity.” From this period, the area includes a massive fortification system that has recently been excavated.
Overall, however, the area comprises only about 11–12 acres. Geva estimates the population of the city during this period at between 500 and 700 “at most.” (Previously other prominent scholars had estimated Jerusalem’s population in this period as 880–1,100, 1,000, 2,500, 3,000; still this is hardly what we would consider a metropolis.)
jerusalem-landmarks
The shaded area reflects the current walled Old City of Jerusalem.
The next period Geva considers is the period of the United Monarchy, the time of King David and King Solomon and a couple centuries thereafter (1000 B.C.E. down to about the eighth century B.C.E.). In David’s time, the borders of the city did not change from the previous period. However, King Solomon expanded the confines of the city northward to include the Temple Mount.
This increased the size of the city to about 40 acres, but the increase in population was not proportionate since much of this expansion was taken up with the Temple and royal buildings. “It is likely that Jerusalem attracted new inhabitants of different social classes,” Geva tells us. “Some of these people came to reside in the city as a consequence of their official and religious capacities, while others came to seek a livelihood in its developing economy.”
Geva estimates the population of the city at this time at about 2,000. (Previously, other scholars had estimated the number of people living in the city at this time as 2,000, 2,500 or 4,500–5,000.)