From the times of King
Solomon to the return from the Babylonian
exile and the Hasmonean
period (tenth to first centuries BCE),
the Temple
Mount in Jerusalem was
a relatively small platform built on top
of Mount Moriah and its highest point was
the Stone of Foundation; this was the site
of the Temple. King
Herod's greatest building project was
to double the area of the Temple Mount
by incorporating part of the hill to the
northwest (which had to be leveled and
on which he built the Antonia Fortress)
and by filling up parts of the surrounding
valleys. Herod transformed the Second Temple
into an edifice of splendor and surrounded
the Temple Mount on its four sides with
massive retaining walls. The walls, founded
on bedrock, were built of large ashlar
stones with beautifully dressed margins.
Each course was set back about 2 - 3 cm.
from the course below it; the stones weigh
some five tons each, the corner blocks
tens of tons.
The Temple Mount, the buildings
and the Temple itself were completely destroyed
by the Roman legions
in 70 CE.
The lower part of the Temple Mount walls
was preserved and its remains are still standing.
Long sections of the southern
wall of the Temple Mount and its southwestern
corner were exposed during the 1970s, furnishing
a comprehensive picture of the monumental
Herodian walls surrounding the Temple Mount
and the vast, planned areas of public construction
outside of them.
The western wall of the
Temple Mount, inside today's Old
City of Jerusalem, is the longest — 485
m. Most of its construction features, including
the foundations and the four gates once located
in it, are now known. Not far from the southwestern
corner of the Temple Mount, the remains of “Robinson's
Arch”
can be seen projecting from the wall. This
arch once supported a monumental staircase
which gave access to the Temple Mount from
the main street below it.
Best known of the remaining
Herodian Temple Mount constructions is the
traditional Jewish prayer area of the Western
Wall (the “Wailing Wall”) which
has stood exposed, above ground level, for
two thousand years. The Six-Day
War provided an opportunity to explore
along the continuation of the Western Wall
from the prayer plaza northwards.
Entering a tunnel at the
prayer plaza, one turns northwards into a
medieval complex of subterranean vaulted
spaces and a long corridor with rooms on
either side. Incorporated into this complex
is a Roman and medieval structure of vaults,
built of large dressed limestone. It includes
an earlier Herodian room, constructed of
well-dressed stones, with double openings
and walls decorated with protruding pilasters.
Ch. Warren, who surveyed the area in the
19th century, erroneously named it the “Masonic
Hall.”
The vaulted complex ends
at Wilson's Arch, named after the explorer
who discovered it in the middle of the 19th
century. The arch, supported by the Western
Wall, was 12.8 m. wide and stood high above
the present-day ground level. Josephus Flavius
mentions a bridge which connected the Temple
Mount with the Upper City to the west during
the Second Temple period. This bridge once
carried water via a conduit from Solomon's
Pools; it was destroyed during the Jewish
Revolt against Rome (66-70 CE) and rebuilt
during the early Islamic period.
Beyond Wilson's Arch, a
large cruciform hall, part of a Mamluk period
construction, was cleared of debris and a
large water cistern was removed, revealing
the Herodian Western Wall in its full glory.
From this point, along
the outer face of the Herodian western wall
of the Temple Mount, a long narrow tunnel
was dug slowly and with much care under the
supervision of archeologists. As work progressed
under the buildings of the present Old City,
the tunnel was systematically reinforced
with concrete supports. A stretch of the
western wall — 300 m. long — was
revealed in pristine condition, exactly as
constructed by Herod.
At the end of this man-made
tunnel, a 20 m. long section of a paved road
and an earlier, rock-cut Hasmonean aqueduct
leading to the Temple Mount were uncovered.
Today one can proceed along it to a public
reservoir and from there, a short new tunnel
leads outside to the Via Dolorosa in the
Muslim Quarter.
The project
of the Western Wall Tunnels was supervised
by archeologists M. Ben-Dov and later by
D. Bahat on behalf of the Israel Antiquities
Authority.
Sources: Israeli
Foreign Ministry