OK, so here is yesterdays actually, and again no pictures at the moment because I'm just trying to get it up and the internet here is rather flaky. Hopefully pictures in the future.
Jim/Hopps
Today we started at the Western Wall area. This is directly to the west of the Temple Mount. There is an old wall we went through dividing the old city (though it is more appropriately the walled city, since the oldest parts are outside of those walls)from the new city, it was the dividing line of Israeli-Jordanian control from 1948-1967 when Israel retook the old city in the 6-day war. There were skirmishes here and there are still bullet holes in this 500 year old wall.
Then we to the Western Wall, where we could also see the temple mount and Dome of the Rock. The temple mount has been rebuilt many times, Solomon's temple was the 1st Israelite temple, once it was destroyed in 586BC by Nebuchadnezzar, Nehemiah rebuilt a temple in 516BC, though it was far less impressive. King Herod realized a larger temple was a need in his kingdom to help keep the population happy and under control. The temple he built is known as the 2nd temple period. This is when the Temple Mount was built, it is a large flat area for the platform that enlarged the current mount using retaining walls, that is where the western wall came from, it is a portion of the western edge of the retaining wall. Of course, this temple was destroyed in 70AD by the Romans, a mere 90 years after being started. The western wall, also known by some non-Jewish as the wailing wall, is a holy place to pray. It was called the wailing wall because of the earnestness of many of the petitions brought there. While we were in the western wall tunnel and the western wall, all the men had to have a head covering on. The prayer area is also separated into mens and women sections.
Near the western wall is the western wall tunnel. It is a tunnel that has been, and is being, excavated that is under and near the western wall. Most of the tunnel goes through a series of arches that were part of a mameluke construction placed up against the western wall hundreds of years later, but excavating underneath it, under the city (muslim quarter), allows much of the western wall to be exposed and seen. The western wall is an amazing feat of engineering, one of the blocks we saw was about 3m deep, 1.5-4m tall, and maybe 20m long, all dry fitted very well. The ability to do this is still amazing today. When we were down there we saw an area where many Jews were praying, and some youngsters were singing. This area is special to pray in because it is as close as possible to where the Holy of Holies was. The excavation in this area is trying to go deep to discover items from the 1st temple period, since when subsequent temples were built they would have cleared the site, rather than building on top like a Tel, the debris might have been thrown to the side, which is where this excavation is, so they hope to find such artifacts.
As we were driving to the Mount of Olives we passed a graveyard of British soldiers from before WWI to WWII, of many ethnicities and religions. It is still run by the British today.
We then came to the Garden of Gethsemane on the Mount of Olives. It isn't a garden actually, as it was an Olive Grove. The name in Hebrew means Olive Grove of Olive Press. There are still olive trees here, one of which is nearly 1700 years old. It is kind of interesting, here is a place that makes olive oil which is used for anointing people, Jesus is the Messiah, the anointed one, and he is praying here.
There is a church here that was built about 100 years ago, it is built on the remains of an old Byzantine church, it was funded by many different countries and each dome in it is dedicated to each country, some of which don't exist anymore. The USA is represented there with the seal of the United States.
The Mount of Olives is East of Jerusalem and overlooks the Temple Mount. It belonged to the tribe of Benjamin. IN about the 12th AD century it became a popular place of prayer, there are many churches built on it today, including the church at the Garden of Gethsemane at the bottom of the mount. There was also a large Jewish graveyard there, which sadly was desecrated when it was under Jordanian control from 1948-67, though there have been efforts to restore them. There is also the tomb of the prophets on the mount, traditionally this was where Malachi, and several other prophets were buried, though there is no proof of that. It is also thought Mary might have been buried on the Mount of Olives. It is also where the Lord will return according to Zechariah.
The City of David is the original location of Jerusalem when David first took it over, it is far smaller than the current Jerusalem. There are many remains here, some 6000 years old, from before David even. Here is where the old Jerusalem water system is, including the famous hezekiahs tunnel. The spring in the Kidron valley is what fed the city, using a shaft and tunnel system it was made accessible to the city without going out of the walls. Hezekiah's tunnel was built in 701BC to aid in protection from sieges. It is 533m long and winding, it is thought it was built in the winding manner to follow some sort of natural fault or dissolution. It used gravity to allow water to flow into the city into Hezekiah's pool. The workers started at two separate ends and met in the middle, it took probably 6-7 months to build. It is approximately 6ft high most of the way, with some variation, numerous false starts and imperfections can be seen along the tunnel. We were able to walk through the tunnel in water ranging from mid shin to knee depth. It was a lot of fun to do that, though it made me think about the workers who built the tunnel. That is not something I would have wanted to do, a lot of work to dig through solid rock, and haul it back out as it was being dug.
The end of the tunnel is near the pool of Siloam. This is from the time of Herod, not Hezekiah (whose pool hasn't been found yet). Originally a newer Byzantine pool was the pool of Siloam, but within the last few years a new pool has been found that shows differently, it is more consistent with the style of Herod's time. This is where Jesus healed the blind man by rubbing mud on his eyes and telling him to wash. Sadly, only part of the pool has been unearthed, as the rest lies under gardens controlled by the Greek Orthodox church and they haven't given permission to dig there. Hezekiah built a large wall extension to include another ridge, the western ridge, into the city. All 3 projects were necessary to be done together, the wall enclosed the pool location and the pool needed the tunnel, they were all interdependent. The task of Hezekiah to build the tunnel, the pool, and the city wall expansion of his time was amazing, both from an engineering and leadership aspect.
We finished the evening by going down to Ben Yahudda (spelling?) street in Jerusalem after dinner. We shopped around a little bit and then had some coffee in a nice little cafe and relaxe a bit.
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