The Millo () was a structure in

Jerusalem Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...

referred to in the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
. '' city of David in and the corresponding passage in the

Books of Kings The Book of Kings (, ''Sefer (Hebrew), Sēfer Malik, Məlāḵīm'') is a book in the Hebrew Bible, found as two books (1–2 Kings) in the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. It concludes the Deuteronomistic history, a history of ancient Is ...

() and later in the

Books of Chronicles The Book of Chronicles ( , "words of the days") is a book in the Hebrew Bible, found as two books (1–2 Chronicles) in the Christian Old Testament. Chronicles is the final book of the Hebrew Bible, concluding the third section of the Jewish Ta ...

(). However it previously seems to have been a rampart built by the Jebusites prior to

's being conquered by the

Israelites Israelites were a Hebrew language, Hebrew-speaking ethnoreligious group, consisting of tribes that lived in Canaan during the Iron Age. Modern scholarship describes the Israelites as emerging from indigenous Canaanites, Canaanite populations ...

. The texts also describe the Millo built by

Solomon Solomon (), also called Jedidiah, was the fourth monarch of the Kingdom of Israel (united monarchy), Kingdom of Israel and Judah, according to the Hebrew Bible. The successor of his father David, he is described as having been the penultimate ...

and repaired by

Hezekiah Hezekiah (; ), or Ezekias (born , sole ruler ), was the son of Ahaz and the thirteenth king of Kingdom of Judah, Judah according to the Hebrew Bible.Stephen L Harris, Harris, Stephen L., ''Understanding the Bible''. Palo Alto: Mayfield. 1985. "G ...

, without giving an explanation of what exactly the Millo was: there is therefore some debate among scholars as to the Millo's specific nature. The most common assumption among archaeologists and historians of ancient Israel is that the Millo is the

Stepped Stone Structure The Stepped Stone Structure is the name given to the remains at a particular archaeological site (sometimes termed Area G) on the eastern side of the City of David (historic), City of David, the oldest part of Jerusalem. The curved, , narrow sto ...

uncovered by

Kathleen Kenyon Dame Kathleen Mary Kenyon, (5 January 1906 – 24 August 1978) was a British archaeologist of Neolithic culture in the Fertile Crescent. She led excavations of Tell es-Sultan, the site of ancient Jericho, from 1952 to 1958, and has been called ...

and demonstrated by

Eilat Mazar Eilat Mazar (; 10 September 195625 May 2021) was an Israeli archaeologist. She specialized in Jerusalem and Phoenician archaeology. She was also a key person in Biblical archaeology noted for her discovery of the Large Stone Structure, which ...

to be connected to a

Large Stone Structure The Large Stone Structure ( ''Mivne haEven haGadol'') is the name given to a set of remains interpreted by the excavator, Israeli archaeologist Eilat Mazar, as being part of a single large public building in the City of David, presumably the ol ...

which she discovered in 2005.

Hebrew Bible

In the

Books of Samuel The Book of Samuel () is a book in the Hebrew Bible, found as two books (1–2 Samuel) in the Old Testament. The book is part of the Deuteronomistic history, a series of books (Book of Joshua, Joshua, Book of Judges, Judges, Samuel, and Books of ...

, Millo is mentioned as the boundary of

David David (; , "beloved one") was a king of ancient Israel and Judah and the third king of the United Monarchy, according to the Hebrew Bible and Old Testament. The Tel Dan stele, an Aramaic-inscribed stone erected by a king of Aram-Dam ...

's construction while building up the City of David after the capture of Jerusalem from the Jebusites. The

New King James Version The New King James Version (NKJV) is a translation of the Bible in contemporary English, working as a revision of the King James Version. Published by Thomas Nelson, the complete NKJV was released in 1982. With regard to its textual basis, the ...

identifies Millo as literally "The Landfill", while the

New International Version The New International Version (NIV) is a translation of the Bible into contemporary English. Published by Biblica, the complete NIV was released on October 27, 1978, with a minor revision in 1984 and a major revision in 2011. The NIV relies ...

translates it to "supporting terraces". KidronValleyFromOldCity

Hezekiah's repair of the Millo is mentioned within a list of repairs to military fortifications, and several scholars generally believe that it was something connected to military activity, such as a

tower A tower is a tall Nonbuilding structure, structure, taller than it is wide, often by a significant factor. Towers are distinguished from guyed mast, masts by their lack of guy-wires and are therefore, along with tall buildings, self-supporting ...

citadel A citadel is the most fortified area of a town or city. It may be a castle, fortress, or fortified center. The term is a diminutive of ''city'', meaning "little city", because it is a smaller part of the city of which it is the defensive core. ...

, or simply a significant part of a wall.'' Peake's Commentary on the Bible'' However, taking into account that the potentially

cognate In historical linguistics, cognates or lexical cognates are sets of words that have been inherited in direct descent from an etymological ancestor in a common parent language. Because language change can have radical effects on both the s ...

term ''mulu'', from Assyrian, refers to earthworks, it is considered more likely that it was an embankment which flattened the slope between Ophel and the

Temple Mount The Temple Mount (), also known as the Noble Sanctuary (Arabic: الحرم الشريف, 'Haram al-Sharif'), and sometimes as Jerusalem's holy esplanade, is a hill in the Old City of Jerusalem, Old City of Jerusalem that has been venerated as a ...

Archaeology

A recent excavation by

directly above the Stepped Stone Structure shows that the structure connects with and supports the

. Mazar presents evidence that the Large Stone Structure was an Israelite royal palace in continuous use from the tenth century until 586 BC. Her conclusion that the stepped stone structure and the large stone structure are parts of a single, massive royal palace makes sense of the biblical reference to the millo as the House of Millo in and in as the place where King Joash was assassinated in 799 BC while he slept in his bed. Millo is derived from "fill", (Hebrew ''milui''). The stepped stone support structure is built of fills. This identification has also been supported by

Nadav Na'aman Nadav Na'aman (Hebrew language, Hebrew: נדב נעמן; born in 1939 in Jerusalem) is an Israeli archaeologist and historian. He specializes in the study of the Near East in the second and first millenniums Current Era , BCE. His research combin ...

. More recently, some scholars have proposed a location of the biblical millo in the fortified area surrounding the Gihon Spring.

References

{{reflist Hebrew Bible places Silwan