65.6 meters (215 feet) to the east of the double gate is the triple gate (sometimes called the eastern Chuldah gate). It is 15.5 meter (51 feet) wide; and is made up of three 4-meter (13-feet) wide arched doors, separated by two 1.8-meter (6-feet) wide piers. The lowest stone of the western gate jamb, which is part of the master course, has a decorative molding on it. This stone is the only surviving stone of the original Herodian gate that stood here, the rest of the gate is from a later period, most probably from the Umayyad period. During the Crusader period, when they turned this part of the wall into the city wall (as it is today), the crusaders blocked up this doorway. This stone is 1.22 meter (4 feet) long, of which 76.5 centimeters (30 inches) on the left are dressed like regular Herodian stones, and the remaining 45.5 cm (18 in) on the right have the molding. The first 8 centimeters (3 inches) of the molding are a flat band to distinguish between the rest of the stone and the molding.
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101 m (331 ft) east of the western edge of the southern wall is a double gate, almost the whole gate is still standing, besides for part of the easternmost doorpost. In front of this gate a tower was built during the crusader era, which covers up the western gate, and most of the eastern. (However, the gate itself was not sealed, and you can go from the tower through this gate.) The eastern gate was blocked up with small stones at the same time.
This gate is sometimes called the (Western) Chuldah gates, although these are not the actual gates the Mishna (Middos 1:3) mentions, as those were in the wall of the square, 500 amah Har Habayis, and these are in the wall of Hurdus's expansion. (However, since these gates led to the real Chuldah gates, you can call them "Sharey Chuldah", and that might be why the Kaftor Vaferach [Perek Vov] calls them Sharey Chuldah.) However, this (and the triple gate) might be the gates Josephus refers to when he writes (Antiquities 15:11:5) that there were gates in the middle of the southern Har Habayis wall. |
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AuthorMy name is Mendel Lewis. Hashem said to Yechezkel, "Its reading in the Torah is as great as its building. Go and say it to them, and they will occupy themselves to read the form of it in the Torah. And in reward for its reading, that they occupy themselves to read about it, I count it for them as if they were occupied with the building of it. (Tanchuma tzav 14) |