As if last week’s discovery of a 2,500-year-old wall in Jerusalem, most probably built by the biblical Nehemiah, were not enough to affix ancient Jerusalem squarely in our historical eye, another major discovery has just been reported by the Israel Antiquities Authority: the Palace of Queen Helena, dating to the late Second Temple Period, or the mid-1st century C.E.. According to the Jerusalem Post (the article includes a stunning photo of the excavation), the site

includes massive foundations; walls, some of which are preserved to a height in excess of five meters and built of stones that weigh hundreds of kilograms; halls that are preserved to a height of at least two stories; a basement level that was covered with vaults; remains of polychrome frescoes, water installations, and ritual baths.

According to the report, the find suggests that ancient Jerusalem was much larger in area than previously thought.

Archaeologists will tell you that this palace, while of enormous historical value for the Second Temple period, does nothing for the debate over the historicity of the Hebrew Bible—for the simple reason that the Old Testament’s accounts end centuries before Queen Helena’s high-profile conversion to Judaism. Fair enough. Yet, in the unscholarly battles over public opinion, it is hard to avoid the feeling that those who would rewrite history without a Jewish presence in the land of Israel—the self-styled post-colonialist combatants who see in every archaeological find yet more proof of Zionist propaganda, and the whole coterie of post-truth Saidians (like Barnard’s Nadia Abu El-Haj) who have decided that since history is really just politics, they are free to rewrite history according to their politics—have been dealt yet another major setback.

The lesson here is that when bad scholarship is mustered to aid political causes, the best response is better scholarship. Keep digging!