Archaeological remnants of the Jerusalem Temple

The Trumpeting Place inscription, a stone (2.43×1 m) with Hebrew writing "To the Trumpeting Place" uncovered during archaeological excavations by Benjamin Mazar at the southern foot of the Temple Mount once marked the place where a priest stood to blow a trumpet ushering in the Sabbath in the Herodian period.

Several kinds of archaeological remnants of the Jerusalem Temple exist, both for the Temple that stood before the destruction of Jerusalem by Babylonia in 586 BCE, and for the rebuilt Temple that stood until destruction by Rome in the year 70.

Surviving evidence of the First Temple

The term First Temple is customarily used to describe the Temple of the Biblical period, which was destroyed by the Babylonian conquest. It is described in the Bible as having been built by King Solomon, and is understood by archaeologists and ancient historians to have been constructed with its Holy of Holies centered on a stone hilltop now known as the Foundation Stone which had been a traditional focus of worship in Jerusalem. Firm archaeological evidence for its existence dates form the time of later Judean kings, in particular, Hezekiah, who is firmly documented as responsible for major expansions of Jerusalem's infrastructure.

Architectural archaeologist Leen Ritmeyer has identified the footprint of a square platform measuring 50 cubits on each side, proposing it as an ancient platform, probably built by Hezekiah c. 700 BCE to expand flat area in which the faithful could gather at the Solomonic-era Temple. Ritmeyer points out that the Dome of the Rock is seated on a square platform atop the Tempe Mount the sides of which, defined by short flights of steps, are square and parallel to the modern walls of the Mount with one exception: the western steps deviate form parallel. Moreover, the bottom step on the western side of the dome of the Rock platform is composed of a single line of distinctively large and "beautifully polished" ashlars.[1] According to Ritmeyer, the measurements given in the Mishna, tractate Middot, "The Temple Mount measured 500 cubits by 500 cubits," can be traced on the modern Temple Mount, with this step the outline of the western side of the square and the Eastern Wall the eastern side.[1] The "precise" measurement of an ancient Judean royal cubit, 20.67 inches, outlines these landmarks area exactly.[1] The northern edge of the ancient square was demarcated by Charles Warren, the last archaeologist permitted by the local waqf to explore the underground areas of the Mount, in his the underground structure he labeled as No. 29 in surveys he carried out in the 1860s. The southern side of the 500 cubit ancient platform square is marked by he the so-called "Straight Joint," a visible bend in the eastern wall.[1][2] Ritmeyer proposes that this 500 cubit walled square was constructed by King Hezekiah c. 700 BCE to expand the flat area in which the faithful could gather at the Solomonic-era Temple. The Foundation Stone around which the ancient Jewish Temple was built and which is now sheltered under the Dome of the Rock, is a natural rock outcrop at the highest point of a Mount Moriah; the natural contour of the land fell away steeply on all sides, although on the eastern side the natural contour formed a flat plateau before falling sharply to the Kidron Valley along the line where the Eastern Wall stands.[3]

Ritmeyer identifies specific courses of visible ashlars located north and south of the Golden Gate in the Eastern Wall as Judean Iron Age in style, dating them to the construction of this wall by King Hezekiah. More such stones are supposed to survive underground.[1][3]

According to Hershel Shanks, "most scholars," think that Ritmeyer is "correct" on both of these points.[1]

Surviving evidence of the Second Temple

The term Second Temple describes the temple described in the Bible as having been built after the accession of Cyrus the Great to the throne of the Persian Empire in 559 BCE made the re-establishment of the city of Jerusalem and the rebuilding of the Temple possible.[4] The physical evidence for the existence this Temple, consecrated in 516 BCE,[5] is enormous; it includes the probable encasement of includes the expansion by Herod the Great of the Temple said in the Bible to have been built by the exiles returning from Babylon under Ezra and Nehemiah, within a far grander edifice, and the expansion of the edifice ancient Temple Mount at least twice, once under the Hasmonean dynasty and then under Herod I, who turned it into one of the largest built structures in the ancient world.[5]

Hasmonean expansion

The Hasmonean dynasty expanded the 500 cubit square Temple platform toward the south; distinctive Hasmonean ashlars are visible in the Eastern Wall.[3]

Herodian expansion

The massive Herodian expansion produced the Temple of Jesus' time.

Inscriptions

The Trumpeting Place inscription and the Temple Warning inscription are surviving pieces of the Herodian expansion of the Temple Mount. Both inscribed stones are on display in the Israel Museum.[6]

Walls

Enormous Herodian lower courses of the massive northern, Eastern, Southern and Western Walls survive.

Structures beneath the Temple platform

Solomon's Stables is a name given in later centuries to an enormous, underground vaulted support structure erected by Herodian engineers.[7]

Paving stones

Swaths of Herodian paving survive in situ on the Temple Mount is several places.[3]

Structures of undetermined antiquity

The Well of Souls beneath the Foundation Stone, understood to be extremely ancient, has never been opened to examination by archaeologists by the waqf.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Shanks, Hershel (1995). Jerusalem, an Archaeological Biography. Random House. pp. 47–65. ISBN 978-0-679-44526-5.
  2. ↑ Leen Ritmeyer, "Locating the Original Temple Mount," BAR, March/April 1992.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Leen Ritmeyer, Kathleen Ritmeyer, Jerusalem; The Temple Mount, Carta, Jerusalem, 2015, ISBN 9789652208552.
  4. ↑ Albright, William (1963). The Biblical Period from Abraham to Ezra: An Historical Survey. Harpercollins College Div. ISBN 0-06-130102-7.
  5. 1 2 The Archaeology of the Holy Land: From the Destruction of Solomon's Temple to the Muslim Conquest, Jodi Magness, Cambridge University Press, 2012, ISBN 1139510207.
  6. ↑ Archaeology in the Israel Museum," eds. Michal Dayagi-Mendels, Silvia Rosenberg, The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, 2010, p. 111, 112.
  7. ↑ Priscilla Soucek, "The Temple of Solomon in Islamic Legend and Art." In The Temple of Solomon: Archaeological Fact and Medieval Tradition in Christian, Islamic and Jewish Art. Edited by Joseph Gutmann. Missoula, MT: Scholars Press,1976, p. 97
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