Temple Mount Archives - Page 46 of 58

Policemen Hurt in Attack on Western Wall

Fifteen policemen were lightly wounded in their attempt to restore order on the Temple Mount after Arab youths emerging from Friday prayers started hurling rocks down onto those worshiping at the Western Wall. Having restored calm with the use of stun grenades, police left the Temple Mount compound in cooperation with the waqf to allow older worshipers to leave. […] The repeated clashes in Jerusalem follow Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s announcement incorporating the Cave of the Patriarch’s in Hebron and Rachel’s Tomb in Bethlehem onto Israel’s list of national heritage sites.

The full article is here. The Haaretz article is similar, but adds this statement:

The clashes later calmed when adult Muslim worshippers dispersed the young stone throwers.

Tagged Jerusalem, Temple Mount

Weekend Roundup

You never know what will start a riot in Israel. In this case, it was the government’s adding two historical sites to a list of 150 that should be restored. Today Israeli police forces entered the Temple Mount in order to remove 20 masked protesters who were throwing objects at tourists.

G. M. Grena notes that BAR has posted a good photograph of the Qeiyafa Ostracon.

Egypt has announced the discovery of a large red granite head of Pharaoh Amenhotep III in his mortuary temple on Luxor’s West Bank.

Tom Powers has followed up the “Under the Temple Mount” post here with some beautiful watercolors of the same areas on his blog.

If you’re looking for more reaction to Eilat Mazar’s “10th century” “wall” announced last week, take a look at this roundup by John Hobbins. I expect to post more on the matter this coming week.

Today is Purim and in honor of this festive holiday, the Israel Antiquities Authority has posted an online exhibit of “Masks, Rattles and Purim Customs.” Some images are available in high resolution here (zip).

Tagged Egypt, Jerusalem, Shephelah, Temple Mount, Weekend Roundup

Under the Temple Mount

I want to return to a recent post on the 360 degree views in Jerusalem. There are some images here that I did not notice or note carefully before, including Solomon’s Stables, the Well of the Souls, and the passageway of the Double Gate.

First, go to the Al Aqsa tour. Counting the images from the left, #6-8 show Al-Marwani Mosque, built a decade ago inside the area known traditionally as “Solomon’s Stables.” You can see the Herodian masonry in the columns.

#9 is the Well of the Souls, the cave underneath the Dome of the Rock.

#10-11 were taken inside the passageway of the “Double Gate.” If you look up you can see the beautifully carved (but now plastered over) domes from Herod’s time.

These are really extraordinary images of places that are very difficult for non-Muslims to access. The limited captions on the website do not explain what you’re seeing. Leen Ritmeyer has a nice screenshot showing the domes.

Tagged Jerusalem, Temple Mount

Massive Wall in Jerusalem Dated to Solomon’s Time

Eilat Mazar announced today the discovery of a large stone wall that she attributes to King Solomon.

The article with the most detail is at the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs (with a copy here). Arutz-7 has a similar report, and others have brief summaries. Trying to sort out all the pieces is a little difficult from these sources, but here’s a summary:

A well-built wall was uncovered that is 220 feet (70 m) long and 20 feet (6 m) high. The width is not given. The wall is located on the eastern side of the Ophel atop the western slope of the Kidron Valley (see photo below). She dates it “with a great degree of assurance” to the 10th century BC on the basis of (1) comparison with walls and gates in other cities and (2) pottery.
A large four-chambered gatehouse was found, similar in style to those at Megiddo, Beersheba, and Ashdod. This gatehouse is 20 feet (6 m) high.
A tower adjacent to the gate is buried underneath the road but is believed to be 75 by 60 feet (24 by 18 m) in size.

The report mentions some inscriptions, but it is not clear what was found in Mazar’s dig and what comes from the Temple Mount debris sifting operation. These should not be reported in the same article, and I sense that some of these inscriptions have been announced previously. [See update below.]

In fact, I think that a good portion of these “discoveries” were made already in 1986-87. Mazar excavated in the southern portion of her grandfather’s “southern Temple Mount excavations” and claimed that she found an Iron Age gate. The article mentions in this connection large storage jars, and I am sure that these were published decades ago. Thus, I surmise that the present excavation is an extension of the old one, but that they are reporting old and new together, without distinguishing between them. It’s fine to report previous discoveries in order to give context, but that does not appear to be how the excavation results are being communicated to the journalists.
Mazar’s claim that the building she excavated in the 1980s was an Iron Age gate never met with widespread (or even non-widespread) agreement among archaeologists. They felt that the evidence did not support the identification as a gate. I’ll write more on this in a follow-up post.

Sources tell me that Mazar has found some very interesting material than has not yet been announced.

Excavation area (circled) south of the Temple Mount

UPDATE: BibleX points to this Hebrew article which has better photos of the excavation and discoveries.

UPDATE #2: I’ve learned that the reason why the Temple Mount Sifting Project was mentioned is that Mazar contracted with them to wet-sift some of her material. Also, there are some more photos from the excavation at the Hebrew U’s Facebook page.

Tagged Analysis, Excavations, Jerusalem, Temple Mount

Western Wall Ramp Reconstruction Update

The collapsed ramp that leads to the Mughrabi Gate of the Temple Mount appears to be no closer to reconstruction. From Arutz-7:

Jordanian pressure is preventing the completion of a walkway to the Temple Mount next to the Western Wall (Kotel), according to Nadav Shragai, senior researcher at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. The Islamic Historical Society has filed suit in the Jerusalem District Court, demanding a halt to the work on widening the Kotel Plaza and the renovation of the Rambam (Mughrabim) Gate entrance to the Temple Mount. The court is awaiting a reply from the Prime Minister’s Office on the matter. […] The plan for renovating the walkway to the Rambam Gate has been approved, Shragai said, but the government is delaying its implementation. “At first they wanted the bridge to be suspended from support columns,” the veteran former journalist explained, “but environmental groups objected. In the end it was decided that the bridge would be placed on what remains of the [dirt] ramp, in order to avoid damage to houses in the Mughrabim neighborhood. This plan currently has the necessary approvals and all that is needed is a construction permit from the Kotel Heritage Fund which answers to the Prime Minister’s Office. For some reason, because of pressure from the Jordanian government, the government is not granting this permit.”

The full story is here. Collapsed ramp (center) and temporary wooden ramp (left). The Mughrabi Gate is just visible at the end of the temporary ramp.

Tagged Jerusalem, Temple Mount

The Ultra-Orthodox Western Wall

This editorial at Ynetnews gives one side’s perspective on how the Western Wall prayer plaza came to be controlled by the ultra-orthodox.

Here’s a snippet:

But then, for the first time in its history, iron barricades were placed in the forward part of the plaza, close to the Kotel itself. This was the first mehitzah, the first separation between men and women, in the history of the Kotel. There had already been such attempts in the past. At the end of Turkish rule and under the British Mandate attempts had been made to separate between the sexes in the area next to the Kotel, but they failed. During most of those years when Jews had access to the Western Wall and during those years when they did not, there was never a mehitzah at the Kotel. But now a mehitzah was put up, which put aside most of the area – and the best part thereof – for the use of the men; barricades were put up to mark the entrances; and ushers were placed to assure the separation and to distribute paper kippot to those men who wished to approach the Kotel itself.
[…]
The escalation of more recent years is due particularly to Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz, known as the “Rabbi of the Kotel.” He did not invent anything, but he perfected the system: swearing-in ceremonies of the IDF became fewer and further between; an attempt was made to separate the sexes at the ceremony in which new immigrants received their identity cards; signs calling for modesty were posted in every corner; Israeli flags suddenly disappeared (and meanwhile were returned). Most of world Jewry is not Orthodox, but the rabbi of the holiest place in the world to the Jewish people is Orthodox – and not just ordinary Orthodox, but Haredi.

The full editorial is here.

HT: The Bible and Interpretation

Jews praying at Western Wall, early 1900s
Source: The American Colony and Eric Matson Collection: Jerusalem

Western Wall prayer area, April 1968
Source: Views That Have Vanished

Tagged Jerusalem, Temple Mount