GEOLOGICAL AND TRIBULATION FEATURES ON ISRAELI TOUR PATHS
PART 8
Dead Sea – Jerusalem and Environs – Normal Eighth Day of Tours
The Rabbi Tunnel
Most of the world is now familiar with the explosive events which took place in Israel during September of 1996. This occurred the same time as our excavation at Khirbet al-Makater, led by ABR Director Dr. Bryant Wood. We were in the country while all the commotion took place, and we found it very difficult to get accurate information on the exact issue which ignited the violence. Most news stories we heard suggested the issue was an underground tunnel newly discovered by archaeologists in Jerusalem or the opening of a tunnel that went directly beneath the Moslem Haram Al-Sharif (the Temple Mount). It was only after arriving home that we were able to get clarification. As far as I can tell, most media outlets never did get it correct.
This is what really happened.
The underground tunnel at th
e center of the controversy was known officially in the 1980’s as the “Western Wall Tunnel.” Unofficially it was called the “Rabbi’s Tunnel,” because it was the project
of Orthodox rabbis in Jerusalem. Work on the tunnel began shortly after the Six Day War in 1967, under the Ministry of Religious Affairs. The rabbis did not discover an ancient tunnel, but dug their own narrow horizontal mine. It started from the area of the Western Wall plaza (also known as the “Wailing Wall”) and ran north a long
the outside of the western wall of the Temple Mount compound. The Temple Mount, which now houses the Moslem shrines of the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock, was refurbished by King Herod as part of his renovation of the Second Temple. While the rabbis worked with government knowledge, there was little government oversight. Professional archaeologists also had little interest or involvement in the project.
As they tunneled north along the Temple Mount’s western wall in 1982, the rabbis found an ancient sealed underground gate. They broke through the gate and began to clear out chambers beneath the Temple Mount. Reports suggest they were looking for evidence of the Ark of the Covenant and the Holy of Holies from the ancient Jewish Temples.
Palestinian workmen on top of the Temple Mount compound heard the sou
nds of their digging up through a cistern. They opened the cistern and rushed down. In an area where the cistern and gate complex came together, they found the Jews clearing out the gate room and passageways beneath the mount.
A Palestinian riot resulted with numerous injuries. The Israeli government stopped the work beneath the mount and sealed the underground gate. Yet, the rabbis were allowed to resume their digging northward along the outside of the western wall.
By the late 1980’s, they reached the north end of the Temple Mount compound. At this point, they also connected with a pre-Herodian second and first century BC—the Hasmonean period) water tunnel north of the Temple compound. With the discovery of this ancient rock-carved water system, the whole tunnel officially became known as the “Hasmonean Tunnel.” The project was finished in 1988, when the tunnel was stabilized and opened to tourists. While tours were not widely advertised, over 10,000 tourists a year have walked the underground tunnel since 1990.
I personally led a group through the tunnel in 1992. The only problem with the tour was, after walking the 400 yards to the north end, you had to retrace your steps back to the entrance to get out. For years, the Israeli government has considered opening an exit on the north end, but fear of Palestinian reaction has kept this idea on the shelf. The new government under Prime Minister Netanyahu decided to open the northern gate in September 1996. This new exit opened onto the Via Dolorosa (the “Way of Sorrows”—the traditional road Jesus took to the Cross) in the Moslem quarter of the Old City.
Unfortunately, Palestinian reaction led to the worst violence in Israel since 1967.
Amazingly, this was not a new archaeological discovery. Neither did it go beneath the Temple Mount or affect the Moslem holy places. Furthermore, it has already been open to tourists for years. What set off all the violence was simply a new exit opened at the tunnel’ s northern end.
The Temple Mount compound is an emotionally-charged holy site for both Jews and Palestinians. Both make ancient religious and modern political claims on the site. Unfortunately, resolution of their disagreement doesn’t appear likely. For now, both sides need to respect the other’s concerns and exhibit some tolerance. Sadly, even that is a long shot.
Author: Gary Byers of Associates for Biblical Research
Afternoon Part of 8th Day
THE TEMPLE MOUNT COURTYARD AND THE SOUTHERN WALL
The wall from the south-eastern corner to the south-western (at Mount Zion) is 1100 m long. The recent excavations at the southern wall, carried out by Professor B. Mazar and Mr. M. Ben Dov disclosed signs of five periods of construction. The lower courses are Herodian, with the characteristic fine dressing, double margin and slightly prominent smooth boss. Next are the large blocks, smoothly dressed, apparently dating to Aelia Capitolina. These are surmounted by smaller, smooth stories, alternating with discs (cross-sections of columns inserted in the wall) which are probably Mameluke. This section is interspersed with small blocks having very prominent bosses and margins, apparently Crusader. The final courses are of small stones of later periods. The wall at he south-western corner was 37 m high.
Three groups of gates are visible in the southern wall of the Temple Mount. The Single Gate, probably dating to4 the Crusaders and repaired by the Mamelukes, is 37 m from the south-east corner of the wall. The Triple Gate is 183 m from the south-west corner and 90 m from the south-east corner. This was the site of one of the two pairs of the Huldah Gates of the Second Temple. The Double Gate is south of the EI-Aksa Mosque, and was the other pair of Huldah Gates mentioned in the Mishnah (Middot 1, 3). During the Second Temple period these two gates divided the Temple Mount wall into three almost equal sections. The courses of the southern wall of the Temple Mount range from 0.75 m to 1.40 m in height. The. twenty-eighth course from the foundation is known as the “grand course”‘ it is 1.85 m high, and runs from the south-eastern corner to the Double Gate, on the same level as the gate thresholds.
THE DOUBLE GATE
The Double Gate can be approached from within the Temple Mount courtyard, at the north-east corner of the EI-Aksa Mosque. Sixteen stairs and a double gallery lead down to a hall whose ceiling is supported by a row of gigantic pillars. From here one can see the front of the Double Gate in the southern wall of the Temple Mount. This underground structure is known as EI-Aksa el-Qadima, or Baq’at el-Baida. The Double Gate, now walled up, is said to be one of the two pairs of Hulda Gates of the Second Temple period. During festivals, pilgrims entered the Temple area from the Ophel square by the Huldah Gates (the gates can be seen in the Second Temple model at the Holyland Hotel). The gate is largely concealed on the outside by a later building; it is 12.8 m wide, and is divided in two by a large pillar. EI-Muqaddasi calls it Buab e-Nabi (Gates of the Prophet) and the Persian traveler Nasir i-Khosrau refers to it as Bab e-Nabi (Gate of the Prophet), both meaning the Prophet Mohammed.
Mujir e-Din calls it Bab EI-Aksa el-Qadima. Ibn Batuta, the Tangiers traveler who visited the city in 1355, wrote that on three sides of the Temple Mount were many gates, but on the south it had only one gate…by which the Imam entered (according to G. Le Str
ange. Palestine under the Moslems, p. 182). EI-Muqaddasi calls this the Fountain Gate, since the water brought to the Temple Mount from the Gihon and Rogel springs flowed through at this point. Nasir i-Khosrau noted that this was the gate leading to Silwan (Siloam). The southern gates of the Temple Mount were walled up after Saladin’s conquest of Jerusalem in 1187.
THE TRIPLE GATE
This was originally a double gate, one of the Huldah Gates built by Herod for the use of pilgrims. Part of the west doorpost remains from the original Second Temple structure. The thresholds of both the Double and the Triple Gates lie some 12 m below the present level of the courtyard. The Triple Gate received its present form during the Crusader period.
THE CRADLE OF JESUS
The Cradle of Jesus, known to the Arabs as Mahd ‘Issa, is part the Stables of Solomon. It is reached by way of a staircase near the south-east corner of the Temple Mount courtyard, east of the EI-Aksa Mosque. The chamber measures 21 m from north to south and 17 m from east to west, and the ceiling is supported by columns. In the west wall is an opening decorated with Byzantine art, probably dating to Justinian.
In Byzantine times a basilica named after St. Mary stood on the site, with a niche dedicated to Jesus; this is now represented by a dais supported on four small marble columns. Nasir i-Khosrau notes that there was a subterranean mosque at the south-east corner of the Temple Mount, where the cradle of Jesus was, and that he (Nasir) prayed at that place. Re writes that Jesus’ childhood was spent there, and this was where he spoke with the people.
In the mosque were many lamps of silver and brass, which were lit every night. (Le Strange, pp. 166-67). The Church of St. Simeon stood here in Crusader times.
THE STABLES OF SOLOMON
When Herod built the Temple Mount courtyard he made it 485 m long and 315 m wide. The courtyard sloped southwards, and the southern part of the plat-form therefore had to be raised to keep the surface level. Herod filled in only the lower part of the space between the retaining wall and the natural slope, and built the remaining space, to the top of the platform, in the form of vaults, with their ceilings supported by pillars. The south-east corner of the Temple Mount, which had a retaining wall 48 m high, was filled with rubble and soil to a height of 32 m; over this filling was a hall, its roof forming the pavement of the courtyard, and above this rose the upper wall. The walls of the Temple Mount were 5 m thick and consisted of enormous ashlar blocks weighing up to 150 tons. This formidable structure made the Temple into a mighty fortress, unequaled in the architecture of antiquity. Josephus writes (Antiquities XV, 11): “. . . which wall was itself the most prodigious work that was ever heard of by man”. The southern wall had a height equal to that of a modern fifteen-story building. Herod constructed two halls with an area of 500 sq. m, the ceilings supported by eighty-eight pillars in twelve parallel rows with thirteen aisles between them, thus raising the level of the courtyard by 12 m.
The arches were 9-10 m high, the length of the halls from east to west was 83 m and the width, from north to south, 60 m. There were additional structures which changed the shape of the halls somewhat. The pillars consisted of large, square blocks, over 1 m high; and each pillar was 1.2 m thick. At the bases of the pillars were rings for tethering horses.
The Single Gate, now walled up, can be seen at the southern end of the sixth row of pillars, from the east, and the Triple Gate is at the south end of the twelfth row; it is clearly visible from outside the wall. Tunnels and aqueducts were found underneath the Double and Triple Gates, and a drain ran under the halls.
During the Second Temple period these halls were entered by the Huldah Gates, and stairs led to the upper level of the Temple courtyard. When the Crusaders took Jerusalem they identified the halls of pillars as the stables of King Solomon, as did Nasir i-Khosrau and other Moslems. The Crusaders used the halls to stable the horses of the Knights Templar, whose headquarters were in the El Aksa Mosque. The Crusaders entered their stables through the Triple and Single Gates (both now walled up), which they rebuilt. (from Menashe Har-El, This is Jerusalem, Canaan Publishing House, PO Box 7645, Jerusalem 1977)
Hezekiah’s Tunnel
Hezekiah’s Tunnel, or the Siloam Tunnel is a tunnel that was dug underneath the Ophel in Jerusalem about 701 BC during the reign of Hezekiah. It was probably a widening of a pre-existing cave and is mentioned in the Bible.
The tunnel, leading from the Gihon Spring to the Pool of Siloam, was designed to act as an aqueduct to provide Jerusalem with water during an impending siege by the Assyrians, led by Sennacherib. The curving tunnel is 533m long, and by using a 30 cm (0.6%) gradient altitude difference between each end, conveyed water along its length from the spring to the pool.
According to an inscription (the Siloam inscription) found within it, the tunnel was excavated by two teams, one starting at each end of the tunnel and then meeting in the middle. The inscription is partly unreadable at present, and may originally have conveyed more information than this. It is clear from the tunnel itself that several directional errors were made during its construction. Recent discoveries concerning a related tunnel – Warren’s shaft – have suggested that the tunnel may have been formed by substantially widening a pre-existing natural karst.
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