This workweek , researcher at the University of North Carolina ( UNC ) at Charlotte haveannounced the most recent findingsof excavation work taking place inMount Zion , Jerusalem : a previously rumored but never - before - come across deep , 17 meters wide by 4 meters deep . They say it is the moat - oceanic abyss construct by the Fatimid guardian of Jerusalem in 1099 to stave off European attacker .
The First Crusade , called for by Pope Urban II in 1095 , was the first of many try by western European personnel to retake the Holy Land ( Levant ) and Jerusalem from Muslim dominance . The First Crusaders storm Jerusalem in 1099 after a bloody and uncivilized campaign fight from both side of the city , and were ultimately successful , re - capturing and base the Kingdom of Jerusalem .
The general pith of the story is well - sympathise – they get along , go steady , and capture , committing various routine of atrocity and leaving a fucking trail in their aftermath . But many of the point ( document by contemporary chroniclers ) are unsubstantiated and until now , there has n’t been any hard archeologic grounds to support an account of a five - workweek siege on the southerly side of the city as told byPeter Tudebode , a Poitevin non-Christian priest travel in the United States Army of Raymond of Saint - Gilles .
According to the writings of Tudebode , Raymond of Saint - Gilles ' army took side on Mount Zion to attack the urban center ’s southern wall , where a trench immobilize their way of life . Raymond supply soldiers with atomic number 79 Iranian dinar to fill in the ditch at dark and the United States Army was eventually capable to proceed with a siege tower . But by this point , it was too late and the defender gain ground .
In plus to the ditch itself , the team has unearthed artifacts from the beleaguering . These include arrowheads , Crusader bronze crown of thorns pendants , fragments of Chinese celadon ware pottery , and a single composition of Egyptian - style gold jewelry – most probably a memento from the subjugation , the researchers say . The archaeologist have also discovered an ( unrelated ) Fatamid structure , damaged from temblor activity , that was likely already a ruin by the time of the assault .
" There was , ostensibly , an extramural quarter of scattered buildings , outside the metropolis to the south , and we excavated a building that was in a blasting state , peradventure damage by the earthquake of 1033 , " Shimon Gibson , a professor of history at UNC Charlotte , say in astatement .
" you may suppose the Crusaders coming at and attack the city from the S and they find the ditch and this ruined edifice , and they made exercise of it for cover , and that explains some of the arrowhead [ found scattered on the building floor ] because they would have been raining down upon them . "
Handy for the archaeologists , the oceanic abyss was seal with a cauterise layer bear 12th - 100 coins . These coins can be traced to King Baldwin III ( 1129–1163 ) , an early crusader queen who cauterise large swathes of the city in 1153 during a civil war against his mother . Therefore , dating the ditch to the period before .
" The ditch got occupy in and it disappeared – to such an extent that a lot of archaeologists who had been cultivate at different points in time believed that maybe this ditch was a figment of the chronicler ' imaginations , " Gibsonexplained .
" That ’s why this breakthrough is so of import – for the first time , we can substantiate contingent that appear in major historical texts . "
" This is enormously authoritative for Crusader scholarship , " Rafi Lewis , a faculty member at the University of Haifa and Ashkelon Academic College , added , " because not only do we have the remains of the ditch that we only knew about from the sources but we also have the remains of the frontline battle itself . "
