Description
During the Byzantine period (324-838 AD), the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was built on the site assumed to have been the burial place of Christ. It was the first time during the city’s long history that its focus was shifted away from the Temple Mount to this newly built church, effectively denying any Jewish connection with the city.
Up until recently, it was thought that the Temple Mount lay desolate for the remainder of the Byzantine period and was used as the city’s garbage dump. However, the reported finding of part of a mosaic floor under the al-Aqsa Mosque in excavations carried out here in the 1930s, points to the possible existence of houses at the southern part of the Mount during the Byzantine period.
