ABSTRACT
When on 15 July 1099 the Crusader troops broke into the city, the Muslim andJewish residents fled to the Tower of David. This tower, which stood next to David’s Gate, was built on the massive podium which had once been the base of one of three towers of the citadel of Jerusalem built by King Herod in the first century BC (Plate 8.1). The Herodian citadel was destroyed at the time of the Jewish Revolt (AD 66-70). In all probability, by the time Emperor Hadrian destroyed the city and rebuilt it as Aelia Capitolina after AD 135, all that remained of the original citadel was this solid ashlar podium and fragments of the two other towers and the city wall connecting them. By the late-Byzantine period the tower may have been partly rebuilt, and the tradition identifying it with King David already existed. Under Islam the association of the tower with King David was retained; it became known as the Prayer Niche (mihrab) of King David. During this period the tower probably served once again as the citadel of the city, a function for which it was admirably suited, being a massively constructed, tall structure located against one of the principal gates of the city. The Tower of David which was encountered by the Franks in 1099 and described by the Russian pilgrim Abbot Daniel a few years later was built on top of the Herodian podium.1 A round tower and curtain walls discovered in excavations to the south of the tower may have been constructed in the Ummayad period.2
