An Iron Age Stone Toilet Seat (the ‘Throne of Solomon’) from Captain Montagu Brownlow Parker’s 1909–1911 Excavations in Jerusalem

Abstract

This paper reconstructs the history of the publications relating to the results of Captain Montagu Brownlow Parker’s 1909–1911 excavations in Jerusalem, comprising the English and French versions of the book Underground Jerusalem by Père Louis-Hugues Vincent, and four articles by that same author appearing in the pages of Revue Biblique. The significant part played by the English translator, Theodore Andrea Cook, is shown, and as it transpires, he is the reason why archival materials relating to the Parker expedition eventually ended up in the Palestine Exploration Fund’s archives. Importantly, an unpublished drawing by Vincent of an Iron Age stone toilet seat, which had been referred to by the excavators as the ‘Throne of Solomon’, was found among these archival materials. The paper investigates thirteen similar parallel stone toilet seats from the Iron Age II and examines what is known concerning issues of sanitation during that period in the Kingdom of Judah.

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