Tonight I ran across another picture of the recent discovery on the Temple Mount. See my post from yesterday: On the Temple Mount
This picture was from my first trip to Israel back in 2012.
You can tell that I was specifically taking a picture of the two small arches as they were something that caught my eye. I wondered what they might be.
Unfortunately the lighting was not very good and the left arch is in the sun and the right is in shadow.
So, I decided to magnify the different areas of the picture.
I will first show the arches, and here is the one on the left. You can definitely tell that it was the top of an opening.
Here is the arch on the right, and you can tell that it has the same basic features.
Both arches have a nice tight fit for the stones on the top.
Here is the center section, and you can tell that it was a much larger opening and much taller. It is perhaps good that I didn’t get a straight on shot, as you can see that the stones are sticking out from the bottom of the wall at the bottom.
You can tell that the bottom four courses in the center were deliberately filling this space and blocking the gate. Above that it is a bit harder to tell where stones were used to repair and raise the height of the wall at different times.
Unfortunately, only what is above ground can be seen.
Steven
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