Temple Aqueduct and Ritual Bath Excavated Opposite Temple Mount

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Pastor Dale Morgan

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Jan 15, 2007, 10:30:35 PM1/15/07
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* Perilous Times

Temple Aqueduct and Ritual Bath Excavated Opposite Temple Mount*

16:57 Jan 15, '07 / 25 Tevet 5767
by Ezra HaLevi

Excavations being conducted opposite the Western Wall Plaza have
uncovered an aqueduct that brought water to the Holy Temple, as well as
a ritual bath from that period.


The never-before-excavated area is situated behind the Western Wall
police station, adjacent to the plaza where millions of worshipers and
tourists come each year to visit the Western Wall and Temple Mount.

The new archaeological find uncovers a missing link in the ancient water
system, known as the "Lower Aqueduct." This system channeled water from
Solomon’s Pools near Bethlehem (located several miles south of
Jerusalem) directly to the national focal point of Jewish worship - the
Temple Mount.

Solomon’s pools, situated just north of the modern Jewish town of Efrat,
cover an area of about 7 acres and can hold three million gallons of
water. A lengthy aqueduct conveyed the water from the lowest pool
through Bethlehem, across the Gihon valley, along the western slope of
the Tyropoeon valley, and into the cisterns underneath the Temple Mount.
Today, the water from the pools reaches only Bethlehem due to the
destruction of the aqueducts.

Current plans for the partition wall will leave Solomon’s Pools outside
the area of Jewish sovereignty.

The plastered hewn-stone mikva (ritual bath) unearthed at the excavation
is from the Second Temple period. It was originally situated in the
foundation level of a private home during the time of the Second Temple.
The ritual bath was damaged at a later date when the bedrock cliff
opposite it was hewn into a vertical wall that rose up to a maximum
height of about thirty feet.

The most extensive remains of the period are those of a Roman-Byzantine
colonnaded street – the Eastern Cardo. Included in that area is a
covered stoa, a row of shops and several artifacts.

The street appears on a 6th century map known as the Medaba Map and is
known as the Eastern Cardo or the Valley Cardo. The lavish colonnaded
street began at the Damascus Gate in the north and led south, running
the length of the channel in the Tyropoeon Valley. Sections of this
street were revealed in the past in the northern part of the Old City,
at a depth of about four meters (12 feet) below the pavement. The full
eleven-meter (33 foot) width of the original road was exposed in the
present excavation for the first time.

“The street was paved with large flagstones that were set in place
diagonally, in the customary method of the Roman world, which was
probably meant to prevent wagons from slipping,” Shlomit Wexler-Bdolah,
the director of the excavations, explained. She added that a drainage
system was installed below the flagstones.

To the west of the street was a covered stoa that was six meters wide,
and beyond it was a row of shops set inside cells whose walls were hewn
out of the bedrock cliff. A large base of a magnificent corner column
has just been exposed in the eastern side of the street and may be part
of a building that stood there, or an intersection with an entrance to
the road that runs to the east.

The Antiquities Authority is carrying out the excavations of the 80 by
200 foot area west of the Western Wall at the request of the Western
Wall Heritage Foundation. The area will soon be the site of the Western
Wall Heritage Center.

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