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Iron Age II - King David and the First Temple Period
  • Woman in a window. Photo: Ze'ev Redovan
  • Window balustrade from Ramat Rachel. Found in the Israel Museum. Photo: Ze'ev Redovan
    Window balustrade from Ramat Rachel. Found in the Israel Museum. Photo: Ze'ev Redovan
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Iron Age II - King David and the First Temple Period

Balustrade from the Palace of the King of Judah

Woe unto who who builds his house with unfairness and his upper chambers with injustice, who makes his fellow man work without pay and does not give him his wages.  Who thinks: I will build me a vast place with spacious upper chambers provided with windows, paneled in cedar, painted with vermilion!


Jeremiah 22:13–14

In the eighth century BCE or slightly thereafter, an impressive fortress-palace was built at biblical Ramat Rachel, south of Jerusalem. Its rooms surrounded a courtyard that had pools and water channels.

In the picture: In the ruins of the palace at Ramat Rachel Prof. Yohanan Aharoni discovered remnants of a magnificent stone-carved window balustrade, the only one of its kind ever found. Similar balustrades appear in art of the period, depicting the “woman at the window” image. In Jeremiah’s harsh prophecy about Jehoiakim king of Judah, he mentions that the palace the king built that was decorated with windows.