Recent excavations south of Jerusalem unearthed a ditch used to defend against siege towers, along with a ruined house Crusaders may have used as cover during a battle. The finds confirm some oft-questioned details of historical accounts of the First Crusade, including how a ditch along the city’s southern wall thwarted the attacking siege engines. And this new evidence provides tangible links to events recorded 920 years ago.

The end of a five-week siege

In July 1099, European armies, fresh from the siege of Antioch, converged on Jerusalem (then ruled by the Muslim Fatimid Dynasty) and attacked the walled city from two sides. On the north, the crusaders would eventually breach the walls and perpetrate a slaughter that still echoes across the centuries. But on the south, a deep, wide ditch just outside the city’s wall kept the siege towers from closing to disgorge their cargoes of armed men.

A priest traveling with the army of Raymond de Saint Gilles, the Count of Toulouse, described the ditch and the crusaders’ efforts to advance. Toulouse reportedly offered his troops an extra payment of gold dinars to venture close to the guarded walls under cover of darkness and fill in part of the ditch. The Frenchmen succeeded; their siege tower got through, slamming against the stone wall of Jerusalem to bring them face to face with an enemy who had traded arrow volleys with them for the last five weeks.