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Who Built the Western Wall?

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Who Built the Western Wall? ARCHAEOLOGY ARCHAEOLOGY Who built the Western Wall? It has long been common knowledge that King Herod built the Western Wall, but the latest archaeological findings indicate that was not the case. Even more surprising, Josephus’s canonic work, The Jewish War, confirms this, relating that the Jewish people built the Temple Mount over several generations, completing it during the reign of King Herod’s grandson, King Agrippa II. > by Yadin Roman Photography: Vladimir Naikhin Above: he Second Temple and the Temple Mount, actions… to bring it to perfection, and this would Drawing of the T together with its massive retaining walls and be sufficient for an everlasting memorial of him” Western Wall by cloisters, always has been portrayed as a singular (Antiquities, XV, XI, 1). the Palestine Exploration monolithic endeavor that was the epitome of King Josephus dedicates the rest of the chapter to tell- Fund, 1865. Herod’s vast building projects not only in Judea, but ing the story of the Temple’s construction. The (Flavio Sklar/ also throughout the Roman world. 10,000-laborer workforce that Herod put together Courtesy of PEF) “And now Herod, in the eighteenth year of his included 1,000 priests who were taught the trade of reign,” the Jewish historian Josephus Flavius building and stone dressing so that they could con- Facing page: The mikve recounts in his book, Antiquities of the Jews, struct the holy areas that only priests were permit- under the “undertook a very great work, that is to build by ted to enter, he relates. Western Wall. himself the Temple of God, and make it larger in Josephus also describes the large cloisters that compass, and to raise it to a most magnificent alti- were built around the Temple after it was recon- tude, as esteeming to be the most glorious of all his structed: “[T]wo of the cloisters rested on the wall, 34 | ERETZ Magazine ERETZ Magazine | 35 ARCHAEOLOGY ARCHAEOLOGY ter looked to the gates of the Temple, and it had been adorned by many kings in former times: and round about the entire Temple were fixed the spoils taken from barbarous nations, all these had been dedicated to the Temple by Herod, with the addition of those he had taken from the Arabians” (Antiquities, XV, XI, 2-3). Josephus continues his narrative by describing the building of the Antonia Fortress to the Temple’s north, the gates that were in the wall surrounding the Temple, and the various Temple courtyards. He also tells how long it took to complete the project. The cloisters and the area around the Temple took eight years to finish, while the Temple itself was completed in a year and five months. From the description in Antiquities, it can be assumed that Herod built the Temple, the areas around it, and the Temple Mount with its massive retaining walls, cloisters, and the open areas that were created when the retaining walls were completed. In The Jewish War, which Josephus published 15 years before Antiquities, he also dedicates a whole chapter to the description of the Temple and the construction process. “The Temple, as I have previously mentioned, was built on a fortified hill,” he writes (The Jewish War, V, V, 184-237). “At first, the flat area on the summit could barely encompass the Temple build- ing and the altar [which was in front of it – YR], as steep slopes surrounded the summit. After King Solomon, who had built the Temple, surrounded the side facing east with a wall, a cloister was erected on the ramp, but the other sides of the Temple remained exposed. In the next generations, the peo- ple continued to pour earth on the hill, until the ground was flattened and expanded. When the east- ern wall was also breached, the area that later was Above: and the wall itself was the most prodigious work surrounded by the wall of the Temple Mount was The drainage that was ever heard of by man. The hill [the Temple added to the hill. They surrounded the foot of the channel under Robinson's Arch, Mount] was a rocky ascent that ascended by degrees hill from three sides with a retaining wall and com- 1891. (Flavio towards the eastern parts of the city until it came to pleted their work above what was expected. They Sklar/ Courtesy the summit of the hill.” This hill, Josephus writes, invested many generations in this work and all the of PEF) was the one that Solomon had encompassed by treasures of the Temple – that had been provided building a wall around its summit. When Herod from donations to God that were sent from the Facing page: Lifting the redesigned the summit of the hill, he “filled up the whole settled world – and built, from this side, the stones covering hollow places which were about the wall and made outer walls around the Temple Mount, and from the the mikve. a level and even area on the summit of the hill… on other side, the internal wall around the Temple.” Archaeologist the inner side of this wall and near the summit Josephus continues with a description of the huge Eli Shukron is on another wall surrounded the hill: on the east quarter retaining walls around the Temple Mount, adding, the right. a double cloister, of the same length as the wall, in “The abundance of money and the generosity of the the midst of which was the Temple itself. This clois- people, encouraged them to do wondrous and unbe- 36 | ERETZ Magazine ERETZ Magazine | 37 ARCHAEOLOGY ARCHAEOLOGY leads from the area of today’s Damascus Gate all rest, which meant it needed to be level and solid. As the way down to the Pool of Siloam. In order to the excavation team exposed the bedrock, a series make it possible for the public to tour “underground of cracks in the rock appeared. The cracks formed Jerusalem,” excavations were conducted last year three big blocks of stone. along the tunnel. The excavations were conducted “At first, I thought that these cracks belonged to on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) an old quarry, or were signs that in order to level and led by archaeologist Eli Shukron. the rock, quarrying operations had been conducted One leg of the underground tour was planned to on the bedrock,” Shukron says. run along the shaft that Charles Warren opened in But then, at the edge of one of the cracks, they 1869. The Palestine Exploration Fund had sent him found plaster on the rock. Plaster hints that there to investigate the walls around the Temple Mount. once was a cistern or mikve here and that it was As the Moslems were suspicious of any attempt to filled when the foundation of the Western Wall was dig under the Temple Mount, Warren sunk his shafts laid. When the crack with the plaster was cleared, it at a distance from the walls of the Temple Mount turned out that the three blocks of stone were not and then tunneled from the shafts to the base of the part of the bedrock, but a carefully laid filling for an wall. One shaft was sunk under the remains of an ancient cistern. That means that whatever is found arch jutting out of the wall that is known as below those stones would provide an indication of Robinson’s Arch in honor of American biblical when the Western Wall was built. explorer Edward Robinson, who had first noticed it Shukron began to excavate the southern part of 30 years earlier. After digging down for nearly 100 the cistern. The stones that had been placed in it feet, Warren stumbled across the Second Temple weighed hundreds of kilograms; a special device period drainage tunnel. He then dug two additional that could lift as much as a ton of rock was brought tunnels that burrowed eastwards from the drainage into the tunnel. When the first stone was raised, a tunnel to reach the base of the Western Wall. small bronze coin was found underneath it. Warren’s shaft under Robinson’s Arch still exists “Coins like this have to be cleaned before any- today. This was planned to be the exit of the under- thing can be seen on them,” Shukron explains. “So ground tour. So, Shukron and his team dug from the I just gave the coin a number and recorded the shaft to the two tunnels that Warren had dug towards place where it had been found and then added it to the Western Wall. A new tunnel also was excavated the collection of coins that we had already found in along the Western Wall to connect Warren’s two the tunnel.” parallel tunnels so that visitors could walk along the As additional stones were removed, it became drainage tunnel and then along the base of the evident that they had not been placed there haphaz- Above: lievable tasks, and the work that you could not described here,” she writes in a note to this descrip- Western Wall. ardly. These stones had been fitted together very Crushed remains expect its completion was finished over the years tion. The description in Antiquities is the acceptable The earth removed from the excavation was taken carefully so that the foundation wall could be built of an Herodian oil lamp found because of their stubborn perseverance.” norm today: Herod dismantled the modest Second for wet sifting, a process which revealed many coins over them. When the second stone was lifted, in the mikve. Lisa Ullmann, who recently completed a new Temple that had been built by the exiles who and pieces of ancient glass, pottery, stone and bone Shukron discovered a plastered step underneath it, translation of The Jewish War into Hebrew (I have returned from Babylon, replaced it with a new one, utensils, and more.
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