Ritmeyer Archaeological Design – Page 43 – …for the latest research, analysis and products on Biblical Archaeology

Upcoming lectures

In November this year I plan to give the following lectures in California:

Thursday 11/15
NEAR EAST ARCHAEOLOGICAL SOCIETY
Place: Town and Country Resort Hotel, San Diego, CA.
Moderator: Gary A. Byers (Associates for Biblical Research)
Time: 9:50 – 10:20 am
Title: 40 years on – Temple Mount research since 1967

Monday 11/19
THE SIMMONS FAMILY CHARITABLE FOUNDATION
18TH ANNUAL PROGRAM IN BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGY
Place: AMERICAN JEWISH UNIVERSITY, LOS ANGELOS
Moderator: Prof. Ziony Zevit
Time: 20.00 pm
Title: Two Temples Stood in Zion: How New Excavations, Old Photographs, Recent Observations and Ancient Texts Enable Us to See the Temples of Solomon and Herod
About 10 years ago, I gave a lecture at the same venue, which was well attended by an enthusiastic audience. I look forward to being there again.

Herodian drain found in Jerusalem

It has been reported in the media (see for example BBC news and the Jerusalem Post) that excavators Ronnie Reich and Eli Shukrun have excavated a large section of the drain that was located just below the Herodian street. This drain was constructed, so that the rain water that fell on the street and the liquid sewage of adjacent buildings could be disposed off. Here is a picture of the drain (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti):

Parts of this drain have been investigated by Charles Warren (1867-1870) and other sections have been excavated by Bliss and Dickie (1894-1897), Johns (1934), Kathleen Kenyon (1961-1967) and Benjamin Mazar (1968-1978). The section found by Mazar below Robinson’s Arch was vaulted and believed to have been a relay of the original drain which had been cut by the south-west corner of Herod’s temple Mount, see this picture from The Quest, p.56:

Warren also investigated a much earlier drain, lower down in the Tyropoeon Valley, so that we know of two different drainage systems. Together with the relay mentioned above, there are three different phases in this drainage system, which indicate three different building phases in the construction of the Temple Mount, see The Quest, pp. 233-235.

The present excavators have not yet provided a map of the excavated drain, but only said that is was between the Temple Mount and the Siloam Pool. In the 1890’s, Bliss and Dickie discovered a large section of the Herodian street near and to the north of the Siloam Pool. This section alone shows that the main street, which, we believe began at the Damascus Gate and followed the Tyropoeon Valley and exited at the South Gate – see map below. On this map we have plotted the street section that was found by Bliss and Dickie in grey with the drain in red:

As the excavators have been digging in the vicinity of the Siloam Pool, the newly found drain is likely to be located just north of the pool. This find received a lot of media coverage because of the remarks made by the excavators that this drain may have been used by people who tried to escape the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in 70AD.

Plan of the Temple Mount destruction

The Biblical Archaeology Society has just published a report on the Temple Mount destruction by Zachi Zweig. On a plan which I had made several years ago, the route of the trench has been plotted and areas where important finds were made are noted in color. Transferring this information unto my latest plan of the Temple Mount, which has the Herodian Temple complex superimposed, one can see where these finds are located.

Bedrock has been observed inside and to the north of the northern gate of the Court of the Women and also south of the southern Soreg. The Soreg is a division wall, inside of which no gentiles were allowed.

A section of pavement, probably belonging to Herod’s extension of the Temple Mount to the south, has been found to the east of the El Aqsa mosque.

The most important remains, however, are the remains of the foundation of a wall. Several photographs of this foundation wall can be seen in this report. As I noted in my previous blog post, if the trench continued south of the eastern stairway leading to the Muslim platform, it would cut through the Chamber of the House of Oil, and that is exactly what has happened. The Chamber of the House of Oil is the south-western one of the four courts which were built at the four corners of the Court of Women. Here we see then the remains of the Court of the Women, a place from which most of the Temple visitors would have been able to watch the rituals of the Temple.

This destruction shows how close the bedrock is below the surface and therefore any archaeological remains can easily be damaged. How much more information could have been gleaned if this trench had been excavated by archaeologists!

Understanding the destruction of the Temple Mount – cont.

The destruction goes on unabated.

This picture shows the trench in front of the eastern stairway which leads up to the Muslim platform. According to my calculations, this stairway is built directly over the Herodian stairway which led up to the Nicanor Gate – see plan below:

Soon the trench will cut through the Chamber of the House of Oil, where the olive oil used in the Temple services was stored. Hopefully somebody will stop this destruction or at least record and photograph the ancient remains.

Understanding the destruction of the Temple Mount

It has been reported that, during the present destruction on the Temple Mount, a 7 m. long wall has been found. There rightly was an outcry by archaeologists and non-archaeologists alike about these illegal diggings on the Temple Mount. Their protests, however, expressed the illegality of the excavations and their fear of the destruction of ancient remains, but they could not tell exactly what is being destroyed. It has been suggested that the wall may have been part of the wall that separated the Temple Court from the Court of the Women. According to my plan below, however, this is not possible, as that wall was located inside the eastern edge of the present-day Muslim platform. Only a full-scale excavation, of course, would make the identification of this wall possible.

Todd Bolen of BiblePlaces kindly wrote on his blog that he is interested to know what I have to say about it. It may be of interest to others also.

In order to be able to interpret what has been dug up, one needs to understand where the Herodian Temple complex was located. Since 1973, I have worked on the problems of the Temple Mount, first as field-architect of the excavations led by the late Prof. Benjamin Mazar, and later as an independent scholar. The result of my research has been published, sometimes together with my archaeologist wife Kathleen, in several places, but recently and more completely in my book The Quest. The most useful plan for understanding the Temple Mount (published on p. 355) is the one you see below:

This plan shows the present configuration of the Temple Mount with the raised Muslim platform in grey. The Herodian Temple and its courts are printed in red, while the yellow area indicates the location of the 500-cubit square pre-Herodian Temple Mount, which dates back to the Iron Age. This is the time of the Kings of Israel and Judah, and it was most likely King Hezekiah who ordered its construction (see The Quest, pp. 189-193).

On an enlarged detail of this plan, I have drawn the location of the trench that is being dug at present in blue, see below:

According to this position, it is clear to me that the long wall encountered is the eastern wall of the Chamber of the Lepers (see plan on p. 345 of The Quest) and perhaps also part of the northern gate of the Court of the Women. The latter chamber was one of the four courtyards that belonged to the Court of the Women, with the other three being the Chamber of the Woodshed, the Chamber of the Nazarites and the Chamber of the House of Oil. As this area has never been built over since the Roman destruction of 70 AD, the wall cannot belong to a post-Herodian construction. It is therefore very exciting that the first concrete evidence of the Herodian Temple complex may have been found and ironically by people who deny that there ever was a Jewish Temple on the Temple Mount.

Continued destruction on the Temple Mount

In a previous post we commented on the destruction on the Temple Mount and posted a reconstruction drawing of the Herodian Temple Mount to show where, in relation to the Temple complex, the channel was excavated. The government of Israel and the Israel Antiquities Authorities are doing nothing to stop this destruction. Therefore the Muslims are digging deeper into the mount. The excavated channel is 1 meter (just over 3 feet) deep and that is about the depth of the bedrock in places. There is no doubt that they must be touching the remains of the Azarah (Temple Court) and the Temple itself. This is a unique opportunity to record any remains that may have survived the Roman destruction. Instead, the Arabs are allowed to get away with it. According to this report, one policeman who tried to stop the excavations was assaulted. Instead of being praised for his stand, the Israeli chief officer of the Temple Mount police, actually told him off! Another deep channel is dug to the north and east of the platform, for pictures and filmclip, see here. One wonders how long this situation will be allowed to continue.

Giving away the Temple Mount

The Prime Minister of Israel, Ehud Olmert, is apparently ready to negotiate the status of the Temple Mount and share it with the Arabs! See this israelnationalnews item.

This is incredible! Who does Ehud Olmert think he is to have the right to negotiate the Temple Mount with the Arabs, who want the Jewish people to relinquish any right to the Temple Mount. The Temple Mount is the third holiest site for Muslims, but the first and only real holy site of the Jewish people.

Historically, the Temple Mount was purchased by King David from the Jebusites for 600 shekels of gold (1 Chron. 21.25). It has never changed ownership since that time. The Temple Mount belongs therefore legally to King David and the nation of Israel. The Temple Mount was the place ultimately chosen by God to place His name there (see i.e. Deut. 12.5; Psalm 78.68).

By even thinking of negotiating away the only dwelling place chosen by the God of Israel, the Government of Israel has started the process of disowning their God. How can they expect to be blessed by God if they treat Him like this?

Announcing our new website – www.ritmeyer.com

We have developed our new website ritmeyer.com and, although still in its developing stages, it is now fully functional. If you log on to templemountonline.com, which used to be the name of our website, for example by clicking on Temple Mount Online or the Jerusalem Capital in the blue field to the left, you will be redirected to our new site.
The reason for this is that we wanted to separate information from the items we sell. With this blog, which we started about half a year ago, we feel that more relevant and up-to-date information could be commented on and shared with you.
The website ritmeyer.com serves now only as a “virtual shop”, where our books, posters, CD-ROM’s and Temple Mount Model can be purchased. These educational materials have proved useful to many people over the past 20 years or so and continue to be in demand. I am still teaching full-time until the end of this year, but after that I hope, with the help of Kathleen my wife, to develop many more materials of interest to professors, teachers, Sunday School teachers and the many individuals who are interested in the archaeology of the Holy Land, especially of Jerusalem and the Temple Mount, as that is our field of expertise.
So, please visit our new store and order the materials that you are interested in. You can also pay online to make things easy. Happy browsing.

More on Muslims digging the Temple Mount

There has hardly been any protest against this destruction on the Temple Mount. It is sad that any information that could have been gleaned is lost again. Here is a YouTube video of the unsupervised destruction by bulldozer.

Digging the Temple Mount – how not to do it!

It was reported today that the Islamic Wakf is digging large trenches on the Temple Mount. This is, of course, a very sensitive area, as the bedrock or any remains of the Herodian pavement would be located about 1 meter (3 feet) below the surface. Zachi Zweig, a Jerusalem archaeologist, protested that the Israel Antiquities Authorities allowed this to go ahead without archaeological supervision, which indeed is outrageous. Zachi observed that “Grey earth was removed from the dig, which indicates that it is archaeologically significant. In addition, signs of ancient architecture was exposed beneath the current platform slabs. It should be mentioned that the bedrock level at this location is very close to the current platform.” For pictures of the ditch that was dug, see here.

What ancient architecture might have been exposed? Only using plans and sections can we know what to expect. On the plan below, we see that the ditch cut through the area of the Temple Court, the inner porticoes, the Rinsing Chamber and the Hel (Terrace).

The section below shows similar information, but in particular how close the ditch is to any remains of the Herodian pavement that would be extant and those of the Rinsing Chamber.

These drawings demonstrate how important it is to have archaeological supervision wherever one digs, and to know the layout of the Herodian Temple Mount, as how otherwise can what is found be identified?