TY - JOUR T1 - Radiocarbon dating and microarchaeology untangle the history of Jerusalem's Temple Mount: A view from Wilson's Arch A1 - Regev, Johanna A1 - Uziel, Joe A1 - Lieberman, Tehillah A1 - Solomon, Avi A1 - Gadot, Yuval A1 - Ben-Ami, Doron A1 - Regev, Lior A1 - Boaretto, Elisabetta Y1 - 2020/06/03 N2 - Radiocarbon dating is rarely applied in Classical and Post-Classical periods in the Eastern Mediterranean, as it is not considered precise enough to solve specific chronological questions, often causing the attribution of historic monuments to be based on circumstantial evidence. This research, applied in Jerusalem, presents a novel approach to solve this problem. Integrating fieldwork, stratigraphy, and microarchaeology analyses with intense radiocarbon dating of charred remains in building materials beneath Wilson's Arch, we absolutely dated monumental structures to very narrow windows of time–even to specific rulers. Wilson’s Arch was initiated by Herod the Great and enlarged during the Roman Procurators, such as Pontius Pilatus, in a range of 70 years, rather than 700 years, as previously discussed by scholars. The theater-like structure is dated to the days of Emperor Hadrian and left unfinished before 132–136 AD. Through this approach, it is possible to solve archaeological riddles in intensely urban environments in the historical periods. JF - PLOS ONE JA - PLOS ONE VL - 15 IS - 6 UR - https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0233307 SP - e0233307 EP - PB - Public Library of Science M3 - doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0233307 ER -