More from the Temple Mount

Posted on October 22, 2020 by vanbraman

Tonight I ran across another picture of the recent discovery on the Temple Mount. See my post from yesterday: On the Temple Mount

blocked arch, temple mount, segel, rittmeyerThis 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.

blocked arch, temple mount, segel, rittmeyerSo, 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.

blocked arch, temple mount, segel, rittmeyerHere 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.

blocked arch, temple mount, segel, rittmeyerHere 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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On the Temple Mount

Posted on October 21, 2020 by vanbraman

A couple of weeks ago there was an article by Leen Ritmeyer about a new discovery on the Temple Mount.

See the full article here: New Discovery

arnon segel, new arches, new gateThis picture is from the original article by Arnon Segel.

The article provides a translation of an article by Arnon Segel and then Ritmeyer gives even more information about the Temple Mount discovery and other items in the area.

I was looking for a picture of some wooden beams that I took that were on the Temple Mount for a class that I was teaching tonight so thought I would see if I also had a picture of this area of the platform wall.

temple mount, platform wall, dome of the rockI knew that I had taken a few pictures in the area where the discovery was made, but did I have a picture of the blocked arches?

blocked arch, temple mount, segel, rittmeyerI looked closer in the picture right above this one and found that I had a picture of the arch that was on the left.

It was not that these arches suddenly appeared, it was just that they had never been written about in any of the many research reports on the Temple Mount.

My picture is from a different angle and has trees, but there is a slightly wider view in the Ritmeyer article that also does not show trees. Perhaps they have removed some of the trees and a larger section of the wall can now be seen clearly which made the features stand out.

temple mount wall seam, Eastern wall of platformI decided to look for other interesting anomalies in the wall and found this seam in the wall that shows two different periods of construction. At some point the platform was extended.

Temple Mount, dome of the rock, platform stepsHere are the steps on the east side of the Dome of the Rock platform. This is just to the north of the newly discovered arches.

blocked arch, temple mount, Dome of the rock, stepsI found that just by the steps is another blocked archway. I assume that this arch has been documented, especially as it is near the steps up onto the platform.

eastern platform wall, old stones, herodIn Ritmeyer’s article he also mentions these two old rocks that are in the wall. He speculates that these may be from the time of Herod’s temple. My picture is from a different angle and definitely from a different time.

These pictures are from 2015 and it looks like they have cleaned things up since then.

cedar timbers, golden gate, eastern gate, temple mountNow for the picture that I was looking for. Here is a stack of beams beside the Golden Gate. A couple years earlier than this there was an article in BAR about old beams on the Temple Mount. There is a picture in the article of a much larger stack of beams in the area in front of the gate.

I may have to see if I have more pictures of this area from other trip to the Temple Mount. However, I am not sure if I do as this 2015 trip was the one where I was able to roam around the most and take pictures.

Steven

Update: I found another picture. See: More from the Temple Mount

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