Eilat Mazar

Eilat Mazar (1956-2021) was an Israeli archaeologist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem who directed excavations at the City of David and the Ophel in Jerusalem. Granddaughter of Benjamin Mazar, she specialized in Jerusalem's Bronze and Iron Age remains and became known for bold identifications connecting her discoveries to biblical figures. Her most prominent claim was the identification of a Large Stone Structure in the City of David as the palace of King David (2 Samuel 5:11), discovered during excavations from 2005 onward. While this identification remains debated among scholars, the structure itself is architecturally significant as a major public building from the Iron Age IIA period. At the Ophel, south of the Temple Mount, Mazar uncovered sections of a massive wall she attributed to Solomon's building program (1 Kings 3:1, 9:15), along with important epigraphic finds including bullae (seal impressions) bearing the names of officials mentioned in Jeremiah: Gedaliah son of Pashur and Jehucal son of Shelemiah (Jeremiah 38:1). She also discovered the bulla of King Hezekiah in 2015. Mazar's excavations in the Ophel area produced evidence spanning from the Late Bronze Age through the Byzantine period, contributing substantially to understanding the development of Jerusalem as described in the historical books of the Old Testament. Her excavations at the Ophel also produced the bullae of King Hezekiah and the prophet Isaiah, among the most significant epigraphic finds in recent Jerusalem archaeology. Her work received institutional support from the Armstrong Institute, which documented her excavation seasons.