Tuesday, August 10, 2004

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH: I missed this one, which is a sort of tourist's guide to the Temple Mount area in Ha'aretz, but David Meadows notes it in the latest Explorator:
The eternal rock for NIS 18
By Avner Avrahami


On the 9th of the Hebrew month of Av, in the year 70 C.E., the armies of Titus captured the Temple, burned it down and destroyed its walls. Among other things, the Romans damaged the western part of the external Temple Mount Wall and brought down its upper portions. The lower portions remained standing and the central-southern part of the wall that remained exposed has since then been known as "the Western Wall," which is "the remnant of our Temple."

The longer, northern section of that same external wall was buried during subsequent centuries beneath construction rubble, especially during the Muslim Mameluke period. During this period (from the middle of the 13th century for 250 years) the valley between the Temple Mount and the city to the west of it was filled with arches and domes upon which streets and houses were built. In this way the Muslim Quarter was built, with the arches and domes creating subterranean spaces beneath it. The Tunnel Wall is in fact a unification of spaces that was created from those arched supporting structures that were built adjacent to the Western Wall of the Temple Mount; it follows the route of the "Herodian Street" that was paved along that wall until the destruction of the Temple.

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