Four Months Abroad; and, The Old City of Jerusalem Archaeological Park

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20 August 2010
2055 (GMT +3)
Jerusalem, Israel

Tonight marks exactly sixteen weeks since first arriving in Cairo. Moreover, tomorrow is two calendar months that I've been in Jerusalem. Holy crap. On the one hand, it's been a really long time, and on the other hand time seems to have flown by as it normally does.

Yesterday I woke up with a plan to travel up north for the day, but I quickly lost motivation for the three hour bus ride. Maybe next week. Instead, I went to the archaeological park on the south end of the Old City, near the Western Wall. Currently there are a lot of digs going on south of the city and in the City of David area. Now I know this sounds exciting: some people go to amusement parks, some to theme parks, and I go to the archaeological park. That's just how it is.

Mostly what I'll be doing here is posting a bunch of pictures, and I'll write descriptions individually. One thing I will point out, though, is the other part of the Western Wall that you can see here. In the nearly two thousand years since the destruction of the Second Temple, the area that today comprises the park was largely underground with buildings and houses built over it. It wasn't until after the Six Day War in 1967 - where Israel captured East Jerusalem and the Old City from Jordan - that archaeologists were able to dig in this area.

In these digs they unearthed the rest of the western retaining wall of the Temple Mount, and the southwest corner. They also uncovered a palace from the Ummayad period (7th-8th Century) after the Islamic conquest, as well as several earlier Byzantine houses that remain largely intact.

One of the things I learned on the aforementioned free tour concerned this section of the Western Wall and why it has not become as popular a holy site among Jews. As I mentioned before, until quite recently (comparatively speaking) that section of the wall was not accessable. So for people going to the wall to pray today, they go to the place where their fathers, grandfathers, great-grandfathers, and so on, went to pray. As we have already seen in other examples, tradition is a strong force here.

In any event, I will now occupy myself with loading pictures and writing descriptions. Perhaps after Shabbat I will get up the motivation to make that trip north.

-MG

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Photos

Archaeological Park
With the dome of the al-Aqsa (The Farthest) mosque peeking over the top.

Digs South of the City
Some of the ongoing work south of the city.

Southern Wall
Of the Old City. During the Second Temple Period there were gates entering the city here that were later sealed off under the Ummayad dynasty.

Huldah Gates
Remains of an arch that was once a gate into the city. Sealed off by the Ummayads, with a defensive tower built later by the Crusaders.

Huldah Gates (a)
Just to the east of the other gate, toward the Mount of Olives. Here the three arches that made up these gates are clearly visible.

Western Wall Continued
This is the rest of the western retaining wall of the Temple Mount. On the other side of the wall at the very back is the Western Wall as we know it.

Robinson's Arch
An artist's rendition of what the arch would have looked like. These connected the ground level with the upper deck of the Temple Mount.

Byzantine House
Largely intact remains of a Byzantine-era residence. (Note: For Byzantine, just think Roman. The Byzantine Empire basically describes the Roman Empire after the mid-400s, whose capital was Constantinople. Byzantine is a description given by modern historians to the people of the time who considered themselves Romans.)

Mosaic Floor
Inside the uncovered Byzantine house.

More Digging to be Done
I like this picture because it really shows the initial stages of an archaeological dig, and shows just how much ground level has changed in the last thousand years.