{"texts":[{"id":"jerusalem-ages:en","table":["David's Jerusalem","David","about 1000 BC","David took the stronghold of Zion from the Jebusites and made it his city. It was a small walled town on the narrow ridge south of the later Temple Mount, about four or five hectares, above the Gihon spring in the Kidron valley. The hilltop to the north was still open ground, where David bought the threshing floor of Araunah and built an altar.","The City of David, about 1000 BC: a small walled town on its ridge, the Gihon spring below, the hilltop above still a threshing floor.","This is the small hilltop town David took. The Temple Mount above is still a threshing floor. Tap the Stepped Stone Structure to see why its date is argued over, then drag the slider to Solomon.","David on the Bible Time Map","Solomon's Jerusalem","Solomon","about 950 BC","Solomon built the house of the LORD on Mount Moriah, on the threshing floor his father had bought, and his own palace complex between the Temple and the City of David. The city now ran north up the ridge to the Temple. The Temple is the Solomon's Temple lab's model, placed here at its true size: small against the hill.","Solomon's city, about 950 BC: the Temple on the hilltop, the palace below it, the city reaching up the ridge.","Solomon has built the Temple on the threshing floor, with his palace below it. The Temple is the same model as in the Solomon's Temple lab, at its real size. Tap it to walk inside there, or drag on to Hezekiah.","Walk into Solomon's Temple","Solomon on the Bible Time Map","Hezekiah's Jerusalem","Hezekiah","about 700 BC","By Hezekiah's day the city had spread across the Western Hill, perhaps swelled by refugees from the north after Samaria fell. Facing the Assyrian king Sennacherib, Hezekiah built a great wall round the new quarter, tearing down houses to make it broad, and cut a tunnel through the rock to bring the Gihon's water inside the walls to the Pool of Siloam.","Hezekiah's city, about 700 BC: the Western Hill walled in, the Broad Wall, and the tunnel from the Gihon to Siloam.","Now Hezekiah's city has spread over the Western Hill, behind a new wall. The blue line is his tunnel, cut through the rock from the Gihon spring to the Pool of Siloam. Drag on to see what Babylon left.","Walk Hezekiah's tunnel","Hezekiah on the Bible Time Map","Destruction and return","Return","586 BC; 538–445 BC","In 586 BC Nebuchadnezzar's army burned the Temple, the palace and the houses and broke down the walls; the excavations still find the burnt rooms. From 538 BC exiles returned under Cyrus, finished a modest Second Temple in 515 BC, and in 445 BC Nehemiah rebuilt the walls in 52 days. The city of the return was small, and how far Nehemiah's wall ran is debated.","After the exile, 538–445 BC: a small city on the old ridge, a modest Second Temple, and Nehemiah's wall, whose line is debated.","Babylon burned the city in 586 BC. Those who came back rebuilt a smaller Temple, and Nehemiah walled a much smaller city. Tap his wall to compare the proposed lines, then drag on to Herod.","Nehemiah's walls on the Bible Time Map","The Feast of Tabernacles in Nehemiah 8","Herod's Jerusalem","Herod","about 20 BC – AD 70","Herod the Great rebuilt the Temple from about 20 BC and doubled the hill it stood on into the largest sacred platform of the Roman world. The city filled both hills, with Herod's palace on the Western Hill and the Antonia fortress over the Temple courts. In AD 41–44 Agrippa I began a third wall to the north. In AD 70 Rome destroyed it all.","Herod's city before AD 70: the platform and Temple, the Antonia, the palace and three walls. The Third Wall came after Jesus' day.","This is Herod's Jerusalem. The great platform holds the Temple; the Antonia guards its north-west corner, and Herod's palace stands on the far hill. Tap any wall or building to see what it rests on, then tap Next.","Walk the Temple Mount in 3D","Herod on the Bible Time Map","Holy Week","Holy Week","AD 30 or 33","The same Herodian city in the spring of AD 30 or 33, at Passover. Jesus entered from the Mount of Olives, taught in the Temple courts, ate the Passover in an upper room, prayed in Gethsemane across the Kidron, was tried and was crucified outside the city wall. The Third Wall did not yet exist: Golgotha lay outside the Second Wall.","Jerusalem at Passover, AD 30 or 33. Gold markers are the Holy Week stops: tap one to open it in the Holy Week lab.","Now Passover, about AD 30. The Third Wall has gone: it came ten years later. The gold markers follow Jesus' last week, from the Mount of Olives to the tomb. Tap one to walk it in the Holy Week lab, or tap Next.","Walk Holy Week day by day","The Temple Mount in Jesus' day","Holy Week on the Bible Time Map","Jerusalem today","Today","today","The Old City today is enclosed by the walls Suleiman the Magnificent built in 1537–1541. Herod's platform still stands, holding the Dome of the Rock (691/692) and al-Aqsa Mosque; below its western wall is the Western Wall plaza. South of the walls, on the ridge where the city began, lie the excavations of the City of David and the Pool of Siloam. Here the scene is simplified present-day massing, and the photographs show the real places.","Today: simplified blocks of the present city. The photographs show the real places.","Today. The Old City walls are Ottoman, from the 1530s; the Dome of the Rock stands on Herod's platform. These blocks are simplified, so tap a photo to see the real place. Drag the slider back to compare.","Jerusalem on the Places of Jesus map","Palm Sunday","The Temple courts","The upper room","Gethsemane","Caiaphas's house","Before Pilate","Golgotha","Sheep Gate","Tower of the Hundred","Tower of Hananel","Fish Gate","Old Gate","Valley Gate","Dung Gate","Fountain Gate","Water Gate","Horse Gate","East Gate","Muster Gate","Bible Labs","Jerusalem Through the Ages","World · One place across the ages","Jerusalem Through the Ages","One hill, three thousand years","Stand on the Mount of Olives and drag the years. Watch Jerusalem's walls, palaces and Temples rise, change and fall, tap any wall or building to see which era it belongs to and what the evidence is, and compare the ancient city with photographs of the city today.","Jerusalem Through the Ages","One view of Jerusalem and a time slider: from David's town and Solomon's Temple to Herod's city, Holy Week and today. Tap any wall to see its era, its evidence and what is still debated.","Drag three thousand years over Jerusalem, from David's town to today.","Jerusalem in Herod's day seen from the Mount of Olives, with the Temple on its great platform","How sure is this?","Every ancient era is a reconstruction: legible blocks for walls, platforms and gates, not a picture of what stood there. Each structure says how sure we can be of it, which excavations it rests on, and where scholars still disagree. The “today” layer is simplified present-day massing beside real photographs.","Holy Week in Jerusalem →","The Temple Mount in 3D →","Present-day photographs are from Wikimedia Commons under open licences; each is credited where it is shown and in the sources.","Scripture quotations are from the King James Version (1769).","The Old City from the Mount of Olives: the Temple Mount with al-Aqsa (left) and the Dome of the Rock.","The Western Wall and its plaza, with the Dome of the Rock behind.","The excavated southern steps below the Temple Mount's southern wall and al-Aqsa.","The Stepped Stone Structure on the City of David ridge, with the Kidron and Silwan beyond.","The steps of the Pool of Siloam of Jesus' day, found in 2004.","The Damascus Gate in Suleiman's walls of the 1530s.","The Kidron Valley below the Mount of Olives, with the monument called Absalom's Pillar.","The Broad Wall, Hezekiah's city wall of the 8th century BC, in the Jewish Quarter.","Inside Hezekiah's tunnel, with the Gihon's water still flowing.","R. A. S. Macalister and J. G. Duncan, Excavations on the Hill of Ophel, Jerusalem, 1923–1925 (1926)","Y. Shiloh, Excavations at the City of David I, 1978–1982 (Qedem 19, 1984)","J. M. Cahill, “Jerusalem at the Time of the United Monarchy: The Archaeological Evidence”, in Jerusalem in Bible and Archaeology (2003)","E. Mazar, “Did I Find King David's Palace?”, Biblical Archaeology Review 32:1 (2006)","A. Mazar, “Archaeology and the Biblical Narrative: The Case of the United Monarchy”, in One God – One Cult – One Nation (2010)","I. Finkelstein, Z. Herzog, L. Singer-Avitz and D. Ussishkin, “Has King David's Palace in Jerusalem Been Found?”, Tel Aviv 34 (2007)","R. Reich and E. Shukron, “Light at the End of the Tunnel”, Biblical Archaeology Review 25:1 (1999)","R. Reich and E. Shukron, “The Date of the Siloam Tunnel Reconsidered”, Tel Aviv 38 (2011)","E. Mazar, Discovering the Solomonic Wall in Jerusalem (2011)","E. Mazar, “The Wall That Nehemiah Built”, Biblical Archaeology Review 35:2 (2009)","J. Monson, “The New ‘Ain Dara Temple: Closest Solomonic Parallel”, Biblical Archaeology Review 26:3 (2000)","N. Avigad, Discovering Jerusalem (1983)","H. Geva, “Western Jerusalem at the End of the First Temple Period in Light of the Excavations in the Jewish Quarter”, in Jerusalem in Bible and Archaeology (2003)","A. Frumkin, A. Shimron and J. Rosenbaum, “Radiometric Dating of the Siloam Tunnel, Jerusalem”, Nature 425 (2003)","I. Finkelstein, “Jerusalem in the Persian (and Early Hellenistic) Period and the Wall of Nehemiah”, JSOT 32 (2008)","Josephus, The Jewish War (about AD 75), books 5–6","Josephus, Jewish Antiquities (about AD 94), book 15","Mishnah, tractate Middot (about AD 200)","C. Warren and C. R. Conder, The Survey of Western Palestine: Jerusalem (1884)","B. Mazar, The Mountain of the Lord (1975)","L. Ritmeyer, The Quest: Revealing the Temple Mount in Jerusalem (2006)","A. S. Kaufman, “Where the Ancient Temple of Jerusalem Stood”, Biblical Archaeology Review 9:2 (1983)","C. Clermont-Ganneau, “Une stèle du Temple de Jérusalem”, Revue archéologique 23 (1872)","L.-H. Vincent, “L'Antonia et le Prétoire”, Revue biblique 42 (1933)","P. Benoit, “L'Antonia d'Hérode le Grand et le forum oriental d'Aelia Capitolina”, Harvard Theological Review 64 (1971)","C. N. Johns, “The Citadel, Jerusalem: A Summary of Work since 1934”, QDAP 14 (1950)","M. Broshi and S. Gibson, “Excavations along the Western and Southern Walls of the Old City of Jerusalem”, in Ancient Jerusalem Revealed (1994)","F. J. Bliss and A. C. Dickie, Excavations at Jerusalem 1894–1897 (1898)","K. M. Kenyon, Digging Up Jerusalem (1974)","U. Lux, “Vorläufiger Bericht über die Ausgrabung unter der Erlöserkirche im Muristan”, ZDPV 88 (1972)","E. L. Sukenik and L. A. Mayer, The Third Wall of Jerusalem (1930)","S. Ben-Arieh and E. Netzer, “Excavations along the ‘Third Wall’ of Jerusalem, 1972–1974”, Israel Exploration Journal 24 (1974)","E. W. Hamrick, “The Third Wall of Agrippa I”, Biblical Archaeologist 40 (1977)","H. Shanks, “The Siloam Pool: Where Jesus Cured the Blind Man”, Biblical Archaeology Review 31:5 (2005)","S. Auld and R. Hillenbrand (eds.), Ottoman Jerusalem: The Living City 1517–1917 (2000)","O. Grabar, The Dome of the Rock (2006)","K. A. C. Creswell, Early Muslim Architecture, vol. 1 (1932)","M. Benvenisti, Jerusalem: The Torn City (1976)","R. Greenberg, “Extreme Exposure: Archaeology in Jerusalem 1967–2007”, Conservation and Management of Archaeological Sites 11 (2009)","The walls of the City of David","Older than David (Middle Bronze Age, about 1800 BC), rebuilt and repaired; broken down in 586 BC","The wall round the narrow ridge of the City of David, the Jebusite stronghold David took. On the eastern slope it ran well down the hill, above the Gihon spring.","David took “the strong hold of Zion” and built round about from the Millo inward.","A massive wall of the Middle Bronze Age was found halfway down the eastern slope, with later Iron Age repairs.","Further stretches of the eastern wall and its towers were uncovered in the large excavation of the slope.","Its eastern line is found in places; the rest of the circuit is reconstructed.","The Gihon spring","A spring; fortified about 1800 BC","Jerusalem's only spring, in the Kidron valley below the City of David: the reason the city was there at all. Solomon was anointed king at the Gihon.","Solomon was anointed at the Gihon; Hezekiah later stopped its upper outlet and brought its water to the west of the City of David.","Massive towers of the Middle Bronze Age were found guarding the spring and a rock-cut pool beside it.","The spring flows today; its towers are excavated. Their form here is simplified.","The spring and its water works","The threshing floor of Araunah","Bought by David, about 1000 BC","The open hilltop north of David's city, where Araunah the Jebusite threshed his grain. David bought it and built an altar there; Chronicles says Solomon built the Temple on this place, on Mount Moriah.","2 Samuel tells of the purchase; 2 Chronicles names the place as Mount Moriah and the site of the Temple.","The hilltop lies under the Temple Mount platform, where no excavation has been made.","The Bible names the place; the floor's exact spot and shape are not known.","The Stepped Stone Structure","Iron Age; its date is debated (12th to 9th century BC)","A huge stepped stone mantle, still standing some 18 m high, on the eastern slope at the top of the City of David: the largest Iron Age structure in the land. It held up something large on the summit. Some identify it with the “Millo” of the Bible.","The Bible speaks of the Millo, built from by David and rebuilt by Solomon; whether this is it is uncertain.","The upper part was first exposed and drawn.","Its lower terraces and the houses built against it were excavated.","It stands today; when it was built is debated.","When was the Stepped Stone Structure built?","In the 12th–11th century BC, before David: the Jebusite fortress he captured.","Jane Cahill and others, from the pottery in its fills.","In the 10th century BC, as one structure with the Large Stone Structure above it.","Amihai Mazar and Eilat Mazar.","Later, in the 9th century BC or in several phases, not in David's time.","Israel Finkelstein and colleagues.","The Large Stone Structure","Iron Age; dated from the 10th century BC by its excavator, later by others","Thick walls of a large building on the summit of the City of David, right above the Stepped Stone Structure. Its excavator proposed it was the palace Hiram's builders made for David.","Hiram of Tyre sent cedar, carpenters and masons, and they built David a house.","Walls up to several metres thick were exposed on the summit, above the Stepped Stone Structure.","The walls are real; what building they belonged to, and when, is debated.","Is the Large Stone Structure David's palace?","Yes: a royal building of the 10th century BC, David's palace of 2 Samuel 5:11.","Eilat Mazar, its excavator (2006, 2009).","A large building of the 10th–9th century BC, perhaps the fortress, but its identity is open.","Amihai Mazar (2010).","Not one building: walls of several periods, mostly later than David.","Israel Finkelstein, Ze'ev Herzog, Lily Singer-Avitz and David Ussishkin (2007).","Solomon's Temple","Begun in Solomon's 4th year (about 966 BC); burned in 586 BC","The house of the LORD, 60 cubits long, 20 wide and 30 high, with its porch and side chambers. This is the Solomon's Temple lab's model at its real size, set on the summit where most place the most holy place.","Kings and Chronicles give its size, materials and furnishings, and its burning by Nebuchadnezzar's army.","Nothing of it has been excavated: the hilltop lies under the Temple Mount platform.","The closest known parallel, a temple of the same plan with side chambers, was excavated at Ain Dara in Syria.","Its size comes from the text; its look is a reconstruction, and its spot on the hill is debated.","Walk into Solomon's Temple","The court and the bronze Sea","Beside the Tabernacle and the other Temples, at one scale","The court, the bronze altar and the Sea","Made with Solomon's Temple; the Babylonians broke up the bronze in 586 BC","The inner court round the house, its wall three courses of dressed stone and a course of cedar beams. In it stood the bronze altar, 20 cubits square and 10 high, and the cast bronze Sea, 10 cubits across, set on the south-east side of the house.","Kings gives the court's wall and the Sea's place; Chronicles the altar's size and the Sea's.","Nothing of the court has been excavated: it lies under the Temple Mount platform.","The text gives the sizes and places; their look, and the court's own size, are a reconstruction.","The court and the bronze Sea","Solomon's palace complex","Built over 13 years after the Temple; burned in 586 BC","The House of the Forest of Lebanon, the hall of pillars, the throne hall, Solomon's own house and a house for Pharaoh's daughter. Their sizes are in the text; their place, probably between the Temple and the City of David, is not known.","1 Kings 7 lists the buildings and their sizes; Pharaoh's daughter “came up” from the City of David to her house.","No building here has been securely identified as Solomon's palace.","The text gives sizes; the place and layout are an informed guess.","The Ophel wall and gate","Iron Age; dated to the 10th century BC by its excavator, later by others","A stretch of city wall with a gatehouse and a tower on the Ophel, the slope between the City of David and the Temple Mount, where the city was joined to the Temple hill.","Solomon built the wall of Jerusalem round about; later kings built on the Ophel.","About 70 m of wall, a gatehouse and a tower were excavated south of the Temple Mount.","The wall is in the ground; its date, and so whether it is Solomon's, is debated.","Is the Ophel wall Solomon's?","Yes: the pottery under it dates it to the 10th century BC.","Eilat Mazar, its excavator (2011).","Later, in the 9th or 8th century BC; the pottery gives only an earliest possible date.","Israel Finkelstein and others.","The wall of the Western Hill","Late 8th century BC; broken down in 586 BC","The wall that took in the new quarter on the Western Hill, the second quarter (KJV “the college”) where the prophetess Huldah lived. Its line is drawn here on the later First Wall, which in places stands on it.","Hezekiah built “another wall without”; Huldah “dwelt in Jerusalem in the college”, the second quarter.","Iron Age walls and a tower were found in the Jewish Quarter, with arrowheads from the siege of 586 BC.","Its northern line is found; its southern course is less certain.","Did the wall enclose the whole Western Hill?","Yes, round the whole hill down to the Pool of Siloam, as the model draws it.","Nahman Avigad, Magen Broshi and most archaeologists since the 1970s.","Only part of it: the Iron Age line south of the Jewish Quarter has not been securely traced.","Some archaeologists, from the gaps in the evidence on Mount Zion.","The Broad Wall","Late 8th century BC (Hezekiah); a stretch survives","A city wall about 7 m thick, exposed for some 65 m in today's Jewish Quarter. It was built over houses that had been torn down to make room for it.","Isaiah: “the houses have ye broken down to fortify the wall”; Nehemiah names “the broad wall”.","The wall was found with the stumps of the demolished houses beneath it.","It is in the ground and can be seen today.","Hezekiah's tunnel","About 700 BC; water still flows through it","A winding tunnel 533 m long cut through the rock under the City of David, from the Gihon spring to the Pool of Siloam, so the city's water lay inside the walls. Two teams dug from either end and met in the middle.","Kings and Chronicles say Hezekiah brought the water into the city; a Hebrew inscription in the tunnel tells how the hewers met.","The Siloam inscription was found near the tunnel's southern end and first copied by Conrad Schick; it is now in Istanbul.","Radiocarbon and uranium–thorium dating of the plaster and stalactites placed the tunnel about 700 BC.","The tunnel is there and can be walked; who cut it is debated, though most say Hezekiah.","Was it Hezekiah's tunnel?","Yes: the dating of the plaster and the script of the inscription fit about 700 BC.","Amos Frumkin and colleagues (2003), and most scholars.","Earlier, about 800 BC, from the pottery found at its ends.","Ronny Reich and Eli Shukron (2011).","Walk the tunnel by lamplight","The pool at the tunnel's end","About 700 BC, with the tunnel","Where the tunnel let the Gihon's water out at the south end of the City of David, inside the walls. Isaiah speaks of a reservoir made between the two walls. The pool is drawn at the tunnel's outlet; its size and shape are not known.","Kings says Hezekiah “made a pool, and a conduit”; Isaiah tells of a reservoir between the two walls.","The tunnel ends at Siloam, where the pool of Jesus' day was found in 2004; the pool of Hezekiah's own day has not been clearly identified.","The Bible says he made a pool; where exactly it lay, and its shape, are not known.","Walk Hezekiah's tunnel","The destruction of 586 BC","586 BC","Nebuchadnezzar's army burned Jerusalem and broke down its walls. On the eastern slope of the City of David the excavators found houses buried in that fire, with arrowheads, burnt wood, and clay seal impressions with the names of officials. In the model the burnt houses and the broken walls of the older, larger city lie round Nehemiah's small new wall: “the city was large and great: but the people were few therein”.","Kings and Jeremiah describe the burning of the Temple, the palace and every great house, and the walls broken down.","The “Burnt Room”, the House of Ahiel and the House of the Bullae, with 51 seal impressions, one naming Gemariah son of Shaphan.","On the Western Hill the Iron Age wall and houses were found destroyed, and the hill was hardly lived on again until the 2nd century BC.","The burnt layer is found across the city; the ruins are drawn on the lines of the earlier walls and houses.","The Second Temple (Zerubbabel's)","Finished 515 BC; rebuilt by Herod from about 20 BC","The Temple rebuilt by those who returned from exile under Zerubbabel and Joshua, encouraged by Haggai and Zechariah. Old men who remembered the first house wept; it was “as nothing” beside it. Herod later rebuilt it entirely.","Ezra dates its completion to the sixth year of Darius; Haggai compares it with the first house.","Nothing of it is known in the ground: Herod's Temple replaced it on the same hill.","That it stood here is textual; its form is an informed guess.","How big was it? Beside Solomon's and Herod's","Nehemiah's wall","Rebuilt in 52 days, 445 BC","The wall Nehemiah rebuilt with the people in 52 days, each family repairing the stretch in front of its house. Nehemiah 3 lists its gates and towers, but how they fit the ground is debated.","Nehemiah inspected the broken walls by night, then rebuilt them; Nehemiah 3 names the builders, gates and towers.","A wall on the crest of the eastern slope, above the older one, was dated by its excavator to Nehemiah's time.","A tower above the Stepped Stone Structure was proposed as part of Nehemiah's wall.","The rebuilding is textual; its line on the ground is debated.","What did Nehemiah's wall enclose?","Only the City of David ridge and the Temple hill: a small city. The model draws this line.","Kathleen Kenyon, Yigal Shiloh and most archaeologists.","The ridge and part of the Western Hill too, fitting more of the gates of Nehemiah 3.","Some earlier scholars, reading Nehemiah 3 against the later city.","Nehemiah 3 describes a later, Hasmonean wall; the Persian-period city was smaller still.","Israel Finkelstein (2008).","The gates of Nehemiah 3","Rebuilt in 445 BC","Nehemiah 3 goes round the wall gate by gate: the Sheep Gate, the towers of the Hundred and of Hananel, the Fish Gate, the Old Gate, the Valley Gate, the Dung Gate, the Fountain Gate by the pool, the Water Gate, the Horse Gate, the East Gate and the Muster Gate, and back to the Sheep Gate. The model keeps that order round the small city; where each one stood is a reconstruction.","Nehemiah 3 names the gates and towers in order round the wall, and the families who repaired each stretch.","No gate of Nehemiah's wall has been securely identified in the ground.","Their names and order are in the text; where they stood is debated, with the wall's line.","The Temple Mount platform","Built by Herod from about 20 BC; still standing","Herod enlarged the hilltop of the Temple into a walled platform of about 14 hectares, filling the valleys round it with vaults and earth. Its retaining walls, built of stones up to several hundred tonnes, still stand: the Western Wall is part of them.","Josephus describes Herod doubling the area round the Temple and building its walls from the valley floor (Antiquities 15.391–402). The Gospels mention the great stones the disciples admired.","Shafts sunk down the outside of the walls to bedrock traced their foundations and found the arches and passages beneath.","Excavations along the southern and south-western walls exposed Herodian courses, the street below them, Robinson's Arch and the stairs to the southern gates.","Its outline is standing masonry; the model's courts and porticoes follow Josephus and the Mishnah.","Walk the Temple Mount in 3D","Herod's Temple","Rebuilt from about 20 BC; burned in AD 70","The Second Temple as Herod rebuilt it: a sanctuary about 100 cubits high, faced with white stone and gold, in its courts of women, of Israel and of the priests, with the great altar before it. This is the Temple Jesus knew.","John 2:20 says it had been building for 46 years; Jesus foretold that no stone would be left on another. Its plan comes from Josephus (War 5.184–237) and the Mishnah tractate Middot.","A Greek inscription from the barrier round the inner courts, warning foreigners not to go further on pain of death.","No excavation has ever been made on the platform itself, so nothing of the sanctuary has been dug.","Its plan and size follow Josephus and the Mishnah; its exact place on the platform is not known.","Where on the platform did the Temple stand?","On the site of the Dome of the Rock, with the bedrock outcrop (es-Sakhra) under the most holy place or under the altar.","Most archaeologists and historians; Leen Ritmeyer places the most holy place on the Rock. The model follows this view.","About 100 m north-west of the Dome of the Rock, at the small Dome of the Spirits.","The physicist Asher Kaufman, from his survey of the platform in the 1970s.","South of the Dome of the Rock, near the al-Kas fountain between the Dome and al-Aqsa.","The architect Tuvia Sagiv, from the 1990s, by the levels of the bedrock and the water channels.","Inside the Temple courts in 3D","Beside Solomon's Temple and the Tabernacle, at one scale","The Royal Stoa","Built by Herod; destroyed AD 70","A long basilica along the southern edge of the platform, with four rows of columns: the busiest part of the outer court, where the money-changers and sellers of animals most likely worked.","Josephus gives 162 columns in four rows (Antiquities 15.411–416). The Gospels place the money-changers in the Temple's outer court.","Columns, capitals and carved fragments of the stoa were found in the rubble below the southern wall.","Josephus describes it closely and fragments survive; its exact design is a reconstruction.","The cleansing of the Temple (Holy Week)","The Antonia fortress","Built by Herod before 31 BC; destroyed AD 70","Herod's fortress at the north-west corner of the Temple platform, named after Mark Antony. A Roman cohort was stationed here to watch the Temple courts at the feasts. Paul was taken up its steps after the riot in the Temple.","Acts 21 calls it the barracks (the castle) with its stairs. Josephus describes four corner towers (War 5.238–246).","Large paving under the Ecce Homo convent was first read as the Antonia's courtyard (the Lithostrotos); it was later shown to belong to Hadrian's city of the 2nd century.","Its place at the north-west corner is sure; its size and shape are not.","How big was the Antonia?","A great four-towered fortress covering the whole rock north of the platform, about 150 × 90 m, with a paved courtyard inside.","Louis-Hugues Vincent (1930s), from Josephus's description; many older models.","A smaller fortress on the rock scarp at the platform's north-west corner; the paving further north is later.","Pierre Benoit (1971) and most archaeologists since. The model shows a fortress of this smaller kind.","The trial before Pilate: the Antonia option","Herod's palace","Built about 23 BC; burned AD 66","Herod's palace on the high western edge of the Upper City, guarded by three great towers he named Hippicus, Phasael and Mariamne. Roman governors stayed here when they came up to Jerusalem.","Josephus describes the palace and its towers (War 5.161–183). Philo and Josephus both tell of a Roman governor at Herod's palace.","The massive base of one tower survives in the Citadel by the Jaffa Gate (the so-called Tower of David).","Retaining walls and fills of the palace podium were found in the Armenian Garden south of the Citadel.","The place and the tower base are known; the palace buildings are a reconstruction.","Which tower survives in the Citadel?","Phasael, the largest of the three.","Most scholars, from its size against Josephus's figures.","Hippicus, the tower at the north-west corner of the First Wall.","Some scholars, from its position at the wall's corner.","The trial before Pilate: the palace option","The First Wall","Hasmonean, 2nd century BC, on older lines; destroyed AD 70","The oldest of Josephus's three walls: it enclosed the Upper City on the Western Hill and the City of David, running from Herod's towers east to the Temple platform and round the south to the Pool of Siloam.","Josephus traces its course from the Hippicus tower to the Temple and round by Siloam (War 5.142–145).","Stretches of the southern line were traced along the slopes of Mount Zion and above the Hinnom.","Hasmonean towers and wall were exposed in the Citadel and along the western side of the Old City.","Its north and west lines are found in the ground; parts of the south are less certain.","The Second Wall","Hasmonean or Herodian, before Jesus' day; destroyed AD 70","A wall round the northern quarter of the city, from the Gennath gate in the First Wall to the Antonia. In Jesus' day the site of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was most likely just outside it, in an old quarry.","Josephus gives only its two ends (War 5.146). John and Hebrews say Jesus died outside the city, near it.","In the Muristan, south of the Holy Sepulchre, a deep quarry was found filled in the 1st century AD: open ground outside the city in Jesus' day.","Under the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer the same quarry was found, and no city wall.","No stretch of it has been surely identified; its line is a reasoned guess.","Where did the Second Wall run?","A short line east of the Holy Sepulchre site, leaving the quarry and the tombs outside the city.","Most archaeologists, from the quarry under the Muristan and the Redeemer church. The model draws this line.","A wider line further west and north, which would put the Holy Sepulchre site inside the city of Jesus' day.","Some 19th- and 20th-century writers, often arguing for another site of Golgotha (such as the Garden Tomb).","Golgotha outside the wall (Holy Week)","The Third Wall","Begun by Agrippa I about AD 41–44, after Jesus' day; finished in the revolt of AD 66","A wall begun by Agrippa I to enclose the new northern suburb of Bezetha. It was built after Jesus' death and resurrection, so it is shown in Herod's era but not in Holy Week.","Josephus describes it as the wall Agrippa began and the rebels finished (War 5.147–160); the Bible does not mention it.","A heavy wall about 400 m north of today's Old City was traced for hundreds of metres.","More of the same wall, with towers, was excavated along its line.","A wall of the right age is in the ground; whether it is Agrippa's wall is debated.","Where did the Third Wall run?","On the line of the wall found about 400 m north of the Old City. The model draws this line.","Sukenik and Mayer (1925–1927), Ben-Arieh and Netzer (1970s), and many archaeologists since.","Under today's northern Old City wall, at the Damascus Gate; the wall further north was a later or temporary work.","Kathleen Kenyon and Emmet Hamrick, from excavations at the Damascus Gate in the 1960s.","The southern steps and gates","Herodian; the steps survive","The broad stairway up to the two Huldah gates in the southern wall, the main way pilgrims entered the Temple courts, with ritual baths at its foot.","Pilgrims went up to the Temple singing the Songs of Ascents; the Mishnah names the Huldah gates (Middot 1.3).","The stairway, the blocked double and triple gates and dozens of ritual baths were uncovered south of the wall.","The steps and gates are in the ground and can be visited today.","Climb the southern steps in 3D","The Pool of Siloam","Rebuilt in the 1st century BC; found in 2004","A large stepped pool at the southern tip of the City of David, fed by the water of the Gihon spring through Hezekiah's tunnel. Jesus sent the man born blind to wash here.","John 9:7 names the pool of Siloam; Isaiah speaks of its gently flowing waters.","Repairing a sewer pipe, workers struck the steps of a large first-century pool; its corner and three flights of steps were then excavated.","The pool of Jesus' day is in the ground; most of it is still unexcavated.","The Old City walls","Built 1537–1541 by Suleiman the Magnificent","The walls that enclose the Old City today, about 4 km long, with the Jaffa, Damascus, Lions', Dung and Zion gates. They are Ottoman: built some 1,500 years after Jesus, in places on the lines of older walls.","Building inscriptions of Suleiman over the gates date the work to 1537–1541.","Standing today; shown as simplified blocks.","The Dome of the Rock","Completed 691/692 under the caliph Abd al-Malik","An octagonal shrine with a golden dome built over the bedrock outcrop at the high point of the platform, a holy place of Islam. Many identify the rock with the place of the Temple.","Its mosaic inscription gives the year 72 of the Hijra (691/692).","Standing today; shown as simplified blocks.","Al-Aqsa Mosque","First built early 8th century; rebuilt after earthquakes, largely in 1035","The congregational mosque at the southern end of the platform, standing roughly where Herod's Royal Stoa stood.","Its building history, from the first mosque to the rebuildings, was traced in the architectural survey of early Islamic buildings.","Standing today; shown as simplified blocks.","The Western Wall and its plaza","The wall Herodian; the plaza opened in 1967","A stretch of Herod's western retaining wall of the platform, the holiest place of Jewish prayer today. The open plaza in front of it was made in June 1967, when the Mughrabi (Moroccan) Quarter that stood there was demolished.","Herodian courses of the wall run down well below the plaza; tunnels along it expose its whole length.","Standing today; shown as simplified blocks.","The City of David excavations","Excavated since the 1860s","The narrow ridge south of the Temple Mount where Jerusalem began, now an archaeological park in the neighbourhood of Silwan, with the Gihon spring, the Stepped Stone Structure, the water tunnels and the Pool of Siloam. Who runs and interprets the park is politically contested.","Major excavations on the eastern slope exposed the Stepped Stone Structure, houses of the 7th–6th centuries BC and the city walls.","The excavations are there today; shown as simplified blocks."]}],"zh":{}}