The Legacy of Solomon by John Francis Kinsella
IN 1999 EXCAVATIONS nearby Solomon’s Stables resulted in a controversy when excavations were carried out by the Waqf to build a new underground mosque with bulldozers and 300 truck loads of rubble was removed and dumped outside the city walls.
Together with Gabriel Barkay of the Bar-Ilan University they were visiting the Temple Mount who told them how the courtyard had been built by Herod the Great around the summit of Mount Zion in around 20BC with the object of constructing a huge rectangular formed fortress. It was 485m long and 315m wide, oriented north-south in the longitudinal direction, and surrounded by massive retaining walls up to 5m thick with huge cut stone blocks weighing up to 150 tons. The area between the natural slope of mountain and walls was filled with rubble, up to 30m deep in places, to raise the level of the courtyard to that of the mountain’s summit, especially in the south-east corner where the bedrock slopes down to the Kedron River, 47 meters beneath the summit.
The fortress was unequalled in the ancient times and the Jewish-Roman historian, Flavius Josephus, wrote the wall was itself the most prodigious work that was ever heard of by man. To the south-east corner the wall was 48m high, and the southern wall was comparable in height to that of a fifteen storey building. Beneath this corner, l2.5 meters below the surface level of the courtyard, a series of vaults was built, supported by eighty eight pillars was built in twelve parallel rows with thirteen aisles between them. At the bases of the pillars were rings for tethering horses.
In the southern wall are three gates, from east to west the Single Gate, the Triple Gate and the Double Gate, these gates are now walled up. During the Second Temple period these vaults were entered by the Hulda Gates, and stairs led to up the courtyard.
When the Crusaders took Jerusalem they identified the vaults as the stables of King Solomon and used them to stable the horses of the Templar Knights, who established their headquarters were in the El Aqsa Mosque. The Crusaders entered their stables through the Triple and Single Gates. It is believed that similar arches could also exist in the south-west corner but in is impossible to investigate this area.
The Waqf had transformed the stables into an underground mosque and the rubble that was removed dates back more than two thousand years, rubble from ancient buildings and constructions, rubble that must have contained vital archaeological evidence as to the past history of the site and its surroundings.
‘Who knows what was lost?’ Shlomo said. ‘The rubble must have contained quantities of ancient materials dumped in the Kedron Valley.’
‘Yes, Jewish history dating back to the first and second temples, and Christian material dating from the Crusades, destroyed or lost.’
‘Luckily we have no a licence to excavate the dumping grounds in the Kedron Valley.’
‘We’ve started collecting rubble from the areas the areas where it was dumped, moving it to a safe area, carefully protected and identified.’
‘A number of Herodian coins dating from the first century BC have been found.’
‘Apart from archaeology, the real question concerns the Temple Mount, which is at the very heart of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict,’ said O’Connelly.
‘Sure, but which claims are justified?
For Muslims the Temple Mount was the place where the Prophet Muhammad ascended to heaven. For Jews the Temple Mount was the place where the Jewish Temple stood and for Christians it was where Jesus taught and overturned the money changers’ tables.
Historically Islam’s claim to the Temple Mount went back to 638AD when Omar entered Jerusalem where he built Dome of the Rock mosque, making it the third most holy site for Muslims, after Mecca and Medina.
‘These walls have stood here for almost two thousand years, but the underground work that has been carried out is extremely risky, it could endanger the whole structure.’
‘How come?’
‘You see the bulge in the wall, that is due water, rain water that no drains into the ground and seeks another gravitational path.’
‘So it accumulates at the walls.’
‘Yes, wherever there is no downward drainage. So the south wall of the Temple Mount has developed a huge bulge under the force of the water pressure.’
‘So it will collapse?’
‘It could collapse – it doesn’t need much to bring a whole stretch of wall down.’
‘Like what?’
‘An earthquake!’
‘Earthquake?’
‘Yes, you saw Caesarea, this is an earthquake zone. The last one that occurred happened three or four years ago, it shook Jerusalem and brought a whole load of stones down from the wall.’
‘The underground mosque they built can house up to 10,000 people.’
‘But who owns it – who controls it?’
‘In the Camp David talks, Bill Clinton proposed sovereignty on the Temple Mount be divided. Everything above the ground is Palestinian and everything underground is Israeli.’
‘I don’t know the complete story, but this, rightly or wrongly, but in any case for at least three thousand years is supposed to be Solomon's Temple and the place where Jesus walked. How did it become a wholly Muslim site?’
‘In a nutshell, according to the Bible, the Dome of the Rock is where Abraham prepared to sacrifice his son Isaac on Mount Zion, where. Later David and his son King Solomon built the First Temple there, destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar. Then the Second Temple, which represents a focal point of the Judeo-Christian common tradition, was built. In 1638 when the Muslims conquered Jerusalem, the Caliph Omar was told of the significance of the Temple Mount and he ordered a mosque be built on the Temple Mount.’
‘That’s the ancient history, and now?’
‘Following Israel’s victory in the Six Days War in June 1967, Jerusalem was unified and declared the capital of Israel. But, Moshe Dayan left the Temple Mount under the responsibility of the Waqf, the Muslim religious authorities.’
‘And that’s the situation today.’
‘That’s the situation today.’
‘And the Stables.’
‘A classified report by the Israel Antiquities Authority has says that the eastern wall is in danger of collapse following a minor earthquake and there is a risk part of the wall could collapse onto Solomon’s Stables, causing a disaster in more ways than one!’
65
The Pool of Siloam
Together with Gabriel Barkay of the Bar-Ilan University they were visiting the Temple Mount who told them how the courtyard had been built by Herod the Great around the summit of Mount Zion in around 20BC with the object of constructing a huge rectangular formed fortress. It was 485m long and 315m wide, oriented north-south in the longitudinal direction, and surrounded by massive retaining walls up to 5m thick with huge cut stone blocks weighing up to 150 tons. The area between the natural slope of mountain and walls was filled with rubble, up to 30m deep in places, to raise the level of the courtyard to that of the mountain’s summit, especially in the south-east corner where the bedrock slopes down to the Kedron River, 47 meters beneath the summit.
The fortress was unequalled in the ancient times and the Jewish-Roman historian, Flavius Josephus, wrote the wall was itself the most prodigious work that was ever heard of by man. To the south-east corner the wall was 48m high, and the southern wall was comparable in height to that of a fifteen storey building. Beneath this corner, l2.5 meters below the surface level of the courtyard, a series of vaults was built, supported by eighty eight pillars was built in twelve parallel rows with thirteen aisles between them. At the bases of the pillars were rings for tethering horses.
In the southern wall are three gates, from east to west the Single Gate, the Triple Gate and the Double Gate, these gates are now walled up. During the Second Temple period these vaults were entered by the Hulda Gates, and stairs led to up the courtyard.
When the Crusaders took Jerusalem they identified the vaults as the stables of King Solomon and used them to stable the horses of the Templar Knights, who established their headquarters were in the El Aqsa Mosque. The Crusaders entered their stables through the Triple and Single Gates. It is believed that similar arches could also exist in the south-west corner but in is impossible to investigate this area.
The Waqf had transformed the stables into an underground mosque and the rubble that was removed dates back more than two thousand years, rubble from ancient buildings and constructions, rubble that must have contained vital archaeological evidence as to the past history of the site and its surroundings.
‘Who knows what was lost?’ Shlomo said. ‘The rubble must have contained quantities of ancient materials dumped in the Kedron Valley.’
‘Yes, Jewish history dating back to the first and second temples, and Christian material dating from the Crusades, destroyed or lost.’
‘Luckily we have no a licence to excavate the dumping grounds in the Kedron Valley.’
‘We’ve started collecting rubble from the areas the areas where it was dumped, moving it to a safe area, carefully protected and identified.’
‘A number of Herodian coins dating from the first century BC have been found.’
‘Apart from archaeology, the real question concerns the Temple Mount, which is at the very heart of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict,’ said O’Connelly.
‘Sure, but which claims are justified?
For Muslims the Temple Mount was the place where the Prophet Muhammad ascended to heaven. For Jews the Temple Mount was the place where the Jewish Temple stood and for Christians it was where Jesus taught and overturned the money changers’ tables.
Historically Islam’s claim to the Temple Mount went back to 638AD when Omar entered Jerusalem where he built Dome of the Rock mosque, making it the third most holy site for Muslims, after Mecca and Medina.
‘These walls have stood here for almost two thousand years, but the underground work that has been carried out is extremely risky, it could endanger the whole structure.’
‘How come?’
‘You see the bulge in the wall, that is due water, rain water that no drains into the ground and seeks another gravitational path.’
‘So it accumulates at the walls.’
‘Yes, wherever there is no downward drainage. So the south wall of the Temple Mount has developed a huge bulge under the force of the water pressure.’
‘So it will collapse?’
‘It could collapse – it doesn’t need much to bring a whole stretch of wall down.’
‘Like what?’
‘An earthquake!’
‘Earthquake?’
‘Yes, you saw Caesarea, this is an earthquake zone. The last one that occurred happened three or four years ago, it shook Jerusalem and brought a whole load of stones down from the wall.’
‘The underground mosque they built can house up to 10,000 people.’
‘But who owns it – who controls it?’
‘In the Camp David talks, Bill Clinton proposed sovereignty on the Temple Mount be divided. Everything above the ground is Palestinian and everything underground is Israeli.’
‘I don’t know the complete story, but this, rightly or wrongly, but in any case for at least three thousand years is supposed to be Solomon's Temple and the place where Jesus walked. How did it become a wholly Muslim site?’
‘In a nutshell, according to the Bible, the Dome of the Rock is where Abraham prepared to sacrifice his son Isaac on Mount Zion, where. Later David and his son King Solomon built the First Temple there, destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar. Then the Second Temple, which represents a focal point of the Judeo-Christian common tradition, was built. In 1638 when the Muslims conquered Jerusalem, the Caliph Omar was told of the significance of the Temple Mount and he ordered a mosque be built on the Temple Mount.’
‘That’s the ancient history, and now?’
‘Following Israel’s victory in the Six Days War in June 1967, Jerusalem was unified and declared the capital of Israel. But, Moshe Dayan left the Temple Mount under the responsibility of the Waqf, the Muslim religious authorities.’
‘And that’s the situation today.’
‘That’s the situation today.’
‘And the Stables.’
‘A classified report by the Israel Antiquities Authority has says that the eastern wall is in danger of collapse following a minor earthquake and there is a risk part of the wall could collapse onto Solomon’s Stables, causing a disaster in more ways than one!’
65
The Pool of Siloam