Tower of David

The Tower of David (Hebrew: מגדל דוד, romanized: Migdál Davíd), also known as the Citadel (Arabic: القلعة, romanized: al-Qalʿa), is an ancient citadel and contemporary museum, located near the Jaffa Gate entrance to the Old City of Jerusalem.

The citadel that stands today dates to the Mamluk and Ottoman periods. It was built on the site of a series of earlier ancient fortifications of the Hasmonean, Herodian, Byzantine and Early Muslim periods, after being destroyed repeatedly during the last decades of Crusader presence in the Holy Land by their Muslim enemies. It is a venue for benefit events, craft shows, concerts, and sound-and-light performances.

Dan Bahat, an Israeli archaeologist, writes that the original three Hasmonean towers standing in this area of the city were altered by Herod, and that "the northeastern tower was replaced by a much larger, more massive tower, dubbed the 'Tower of David' beginning in the 5th century CE." Originally referring to the Herodian tower in the northeast of the citadel, in the 19th century the name Tower of David began to refer to the 17th-century minaret at the opposite side of the citadel, and since 1967 officially refers to the entire citadel.

The Tower of David hosted several art exhibitions in the 1920s in a period dubbed by some the Tower of David Period in Israeli art.

Text adapted from “Tower of David” on Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Tower of David ranks #206 of 8,131 worldwide in the atlas's castle fame ranking, and #2 of the 25 mapped in Israel. Founded 150 BC, it is older than 99% of the atlas's dated landmarks — one of 12 atlas entries founded in the 2nd century BC. Its Wikipedia articles were opened 17,992 times in the last 60 days, more than 97% of the atlas. 14 more atlas landmarks stand within 25 km. The nearest day-trip guide is Jerusalem, 1 km away. It is one of the 113 landmarks on the atlas's regional map of the Levant. See how Israel compares in the castle statistics.

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Read the full history on Wikipedia ↗