The Eastern Wall of Har Habayis, part 4

    The northern part of the eastern wall of Har Habayis, from the northern joint to the northeast corner of the Har Habayis, a distance of around 121 meters (397 feet) is from Hurdus's expansion. This wall crossed over the Bezesa valley and continued onto the hill north of Har Hamoriah. By the northeast corner, there is a tower that was (mistakenly) called "The Tower of Antonia" (The Antonia fortress, mentioned by Josephus, was actually by the northwest corner of Har Habayis). 

the third wall in the east, the broken line is the traditional opinion, the solid line is the new opinion

    In front of this part of the wall were found remains of structures, apparently dwellings, and workshops for production of stone slabs and stone inlays; among the wares were handmade vessels. The finds, which are mostly fragments of pottery and stone vessels and coins, are mostly of Herodian date, although some are from Chashmona'iy times. The generally accepted opinion is that the third wall of Yerushalayim (This wall was started by king Agrippas I to encompass the newer neighborhoods of the city; and was finished during the preparations for the war with Rome than ended with the Churban) ended at the northeast corner of the Har Habayis. However, based on this find, some have concluded that it continued, and ran along the eastern Har Habayis wall, slightly to its east, until it met the first wall. This actually fits better with Josephus, who writes (Wars 5:4:2) "it joined to the old wall at the valley called the Valley of Kidron".

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​   This northern section of the eastern wall has been supposed by many to not be from the Herodian expansion of Har Habayis. Some have thought that it was from much later times, while others have supposed it to be from the third wall of Yerushalayim, built by Agrippas I, with the tower being one of the many towers in the city walls. However, a careful examination of the stones shows them to be the exact same style as the stones in the southern and western walls of the Har Habayis, indicating that they are all from the same time. These stones all have drafted margins, and smooth bosses, while the ones that were under ground level during the times of the Beis Hamikdash have rough, projecting bosses, as since they were not visible, there was no need to smooth them down. In this part of the east wall, this level was apparently 714.9 m (2345.5 ft) above sea level.

    The tower at this corner, mistakenly called the "tower of Antonia", is 25.5 m (83 ft 10 in) wide, from north to south. Similar to the tower by the southeast corner, this tower projects from the rest of the wall, and above the present ground level, it projects 2.14 m (7 ft). This projection starts 17 stone courses below the present ground level, at a level of around 714 m (2342 ft) above sea level. The projection is formed by the fact that the courses of the tower are barely not set back from each other, unlike the rest of the Har Habayis walls. (The courses of the wall are set back 10-17 cm [4-7 in] in this area, while the courses of the tower are set back 3 cm [1 1/4 in].)

   Below the southern end of the tower, by the third stone course above the rock, there are three red letters painted on one of the stones, like the letters by the southeast corner of the Har Habayis. The boss of this stone is not smoothed; however, a large piece was chipped off, creating a flat surface for these letters. [See my article about that corner (The Eastern Wall of Har Habayis, part 2) for more about these letters and their meaning.]

    This part of the eastern wall, as mentioned previously, crosses over a valley. The bottom of the valley is located around 18.5 m (61 ft) to the south of the southern edge of the tower, the rock is here at a level of 694.4 m (2,278.2 ft) above sea level, the lowest known point in any of the Har Habayis walls. The rock has been cut into different "steps", to better receive the stones of the walls.

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The bedrock at the bottom of the wall

The letters painted on the stone

Reference
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אוצר ירושלים והמקדש, יצא לאור ע"י אנציקלופדיה תלמודית, ירושלים התשע"ג
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רייך, רוני, and אלי שוקרון. "Jerusalem, Golden Gate / ירושלים, שער הרחמים" Hadashot Arkheologiyot / חדשות ארכיאולוגיות קו (1996): 134–134, 
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The Archeological Survey of Israel, Jerusalem, site 409

Conder, Claude Reignier, and Warren, Charles. The Survey of Western Palestine: Jerusalem. London, 1884.​

Ritmeyer, Leen. The Quest: Revealing the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Israel: Carta, 2006.​