Tent Work in Palestine: A Record of Discovery and Adventure

by C. R. Conder

I may, perhaps, insist upon an indication of date connected with the dressing of the stones, which I have never seen brought to bear on the question. Drafted masonry, imitating that on these walls, was used by Byzantine builders and by Crusading masons; but they never dressed their stones in the manner in which those of the Temple are dressed. This is distinctive and unique. It consists of a careful cross-chiselling, on the draft, and for a depth of three inches round the margin of the raised part of the stone—a regular “criss-cross” pattern, never found in the later masonry. This dressing also occurs on the stones of the voussoirs of the great Tyropæon bridge, an indication which I have never seen noticed before. The bridge and the wall then are, to all appearance, of one period; the lower courses of the wall are proved, by excavation, to be in situ, and thus the existing line must, I conclude, be referred to the time of the bridge. No one has disputed as to when this bridge was built. Captain Warren has shown that an older arch fell, and a pavement was made over it, before the present ruined bridge was built; thus the present arch is generally thought to be not earlier than Herod’s time; and hence the Haram wall is attributable, according to the indications obtained from its masonry (as was long ago pointed out by the Comte de Vogüé, arguing from different premises), to the time when Herod rebuilt the work of Solomon, doubling the area enclosed (Wars. i. 21, 1), and in part, if not altogether, “took away the old foundations” (Ant. xv. 11, 3).

On the north other important indications exist which require careful consideration. Josephus tells us that a tower called Baris (probably meaning “the castle”) was built by Hyrcanus and repaired by Herod. It was on a hill which originally joined that of Bezetha, but was severed by an artificial trench. The fortress was re-named Antonia; it stood on a rock fifty cubits high (B. J. v. 5, 8), and at the north-west corner of the Temple, which it commanded, being on the “top of the hill” (B. J. vi. 1, 5). Now there is just such a rock-fortress in the north-west part of the Haram. It is a great scarp, with vertical faces on the south and north, standing up forty feet above the interior court, and separated from the north-eastern hill of Jerusalem by a ditch fifty yards broad, in which are now the “Twin Pools”—the Bethesda of St. Jerome. This block of rock is “the top of the hill,” and occupies a length of 350 feet along the course of the north wall of the Haram. No other such scarp exists in or near the enclosure of the High Sanctuary. Can we, then, hesitate to place Antonia here?

The foregoing observations knit together the various parts of the Haram enclosure, as constituting a single building of one period. The east wall, from the Golden Gate southwards, is in one piece with the south wall; the south-west corner has the remains of Herod’s bridge contemporary with the wall; the west wall is all of one style with the rest; at the south-east angle the Ophel wall is found joining the east wall of the enclosure as described by Josephus, and the north-west corner is occupied by Antonia.

But we have still the north-east corner of the Haram to consider, and here we have, I think, indications that it was not originally part of the Temple enclosure. There is no rock north-east of the present platform for a great depth: a valley runs across this part of the area, and even the present surface is very low. It is also ascertained that the east wall has, near the north-east corner, a character distinct from the remainder, and much rougher, and that it runs beyond the present north-east corner of the Haram without a break.

Nor can it, I think, well be doubted, that the north wall of the Haram, east of the rock scarp, is less ancient than the other walls. In the first place, the vaults in this part, which Captain Warren explored, and which I also visited, are Crusading or Saracenic work; they are of masonry, with groined roofs and pointed arches, not of rock, like the great passages under the Platform. In the second place, the north wall consists of at least two thicknesses of rough small masonry, which was once covered with the plaster of the great pool called Birket Israîl. This masonry is certainly more modern than the time of Herod, and the pool is not clearly mentioned, in any account of Jerusalem before the twelfth century, about which period, perhaps, it was first constructed. Had a fine wall existed on the north side of the Haram, surely the cement would have been spread directly over it, and not over a facing of inferior stonework far more liable to leak. A boring through the wall would here be most valuable as an exploration, but, even without it, there is I think ample evidence that the north-east corner of the Haram, east of Antonia, north of the Golden Gate, is not a part of Herod’s enclosure, as its walls and subterranean vaults are distinct in character.

Assuming the outer boundary of the Temple Hill, to have been thus defined, as coinciding with the Haram walls except on the north-east, we have next to explain the statements of the Talmud, which make the “Mountain of the House” 500 cubits by 500.

The explanation is not difficult. Maimonides tells us, in a passage of which Dr. Chaplin kindly sent me a translation, in 1873: “The men who built the second Temple, when they built it in the days of Ezra, they built it like Solomon’s, and in some things according to the explanation in Ezekiel.”

The learned Professor Constantine l’Empereur, speaking of the same question in 1630 A.D., quotes the Talmud Commentary as follows:

“The Mountain of the House was to the north of Jerusalem, and the mountain was indeed much greater than five hundred cubits on each side would contain, but to the outer part of it the sanctity did not extend.”

In this particular, then, the men of the second Temple followed the injunction in the Book of Ezekiel. “Five hundred long and five hundred broad, to make a separation between the sanctuary and the profane place” (Ezekiel xlii. 20); or, in the words of the Revelation (xi. 2): “The court which is without ... measure it not, for it is given unto the Gentiles.”