Temple Zero

Temple Zero is an informal name for a group of rooms cut into the rock on the City of David's eastern slope in Jerusalem. The excavation report by Eli Shukron and four co-authors, published in January 2025, interprets the rooms as a "cultic complex." Shukron has also linked the site to Melchizedek, the king of Salem who blessed Abram (Genesis 14:18-20), but Christianity Today reported in December 2025 that the January 2025 news release on the findings left that link out, and the Armstrong Institute notes that the peer-reviewed article does not describe it.

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Melchizedek and Salem in Scripture

Genesis tells how Melchizedek king of Salem, "priest of God Most High," brought out bread and wine and blessed Abram (later Abraham), and Abram gave him "a tenth of everything" (Genesis 14:18-20). Salem is identified with Jerusalem, and a psalm sets it beside Zion: "His tent is in Salem, His dwelling place in Zion" (Psalm 76:2).

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The rooms and what was found

According to a 2020 article by Shukron and Rabbi Yoel Bin-Nun, the rooms were excavated under Shukron's direction in 2010, and in 2011 he and Ronny Reich of the University of Haifa dug a strip just east of them. Announcing the findings in January 2025, the Israel Antiquities Authority said that Montague Parker, a British explorer searching for the Ark of the Covenant, had first exposed the northern part in 1909, and that the complex has eight rooms cut into the bedrock, covering nearly 2,370 square feet, among them an installation with a drainage channel that researchers read as an altar, a standing stone, a winepress and an oil press. Summarizing the peer-reviewed report in January 2025, Live Science wrote that the most important find was the standing stone in room 4, with the platform built around it, and that three V-shaped grooves in room 5 may have held a loom or, as Shukron thinks, a tripod used in ritual.

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Dating and Shukron's proposal

Shukron set out his proposal in a July 2019 interview with CBN News, in which he called the site the temple of Melchizedek, and in an article posted in December 2020 with Bin-Nun, which credits Shukron with reading the finds by Genesis 14 and 28 and dates potsherds found there to the 18th century BC, "the period corresponding to the days of Melchizedek and Abraham." The peer-reviewed report by Shukron and his co-authors dates the complex's construction "likely" to the Middle Bronze Age (2000-1550 BC) and its final stage to Iron Age IIB (925-720 BC), when kings ruled in Judah. In January 2025 Shukron said fill from the eighth century BC had sealed the site, and suggested that it may have gone out of use as part of the reform of Hezekiah king of Judah, who "shattered the sacred pillars" (2 Kings 18:4). The report, "Evidence of Worship in the Rock-Cut Rooms on the Eastern Slope of the City of David, Jerusalem," appeared in volume 116 (2024) of 'Atiqot, which the Israel Antiquities Authority publishes three times a year and which states that all it publishes is subject to "double anonymous peer review."

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Other readings

Aren Maeir, who has taught archaeology at Bar-Ilan University since 1991 and directs its expedition to Tell es-Safi/Gath, reviews the date and function of the rooms in a chapter of a volume published in 2026.