British Academy Monographs on Archaeology The British Academy is proud to launch this new series dedicated to the publication of major archaeological research. The British Schools and Institutes abroad (which are funded by the Academy) have sustained a high level of archaeological activity over the last thirty years. The series, concentrating on work in the Near East and Africa, will include major past excavations as well as the first substantial publications of young scholars developing programmes of research. All periods from prehistory to early modern times will be covered in the series, and `archaeology' is interpreted broadly to encompass the study of material culture in all its aspects. The regions covered are ones of great cultural diversity, and the continuing study of their antiquity illuminates present history and offers much to anyone interested in the roots of civilization. This volume continues the publication of the late Dame Kathleen Kenyon's excavations of ancient Jerusalem between 1961 and 1967. There is a full description of the stratigraphy, architecture, and objects recovered from eight phases dating between the ninth and early sixth centuries BC. There is a major analysis of the ceramic sequence, much of it the result of new statistical methods and detailed study of manufacturing techniques. The authors provide commentaries on the practices of Jerusalem potters ancient and modern, and on the trading patterns that are revealed. The conclusions illuminate details of the social, religious, and economic life of the quarter: a guest house near the ancient city gate; an adjacent local cult cave, perhaps offered to the Canaanite deity Asherah; the progressive decline of the quarter and its final abandonment when a new city wall system was built over it c.700 BC.