In the southeastern corner of the expanded Har Habayis, there was a tower, the remains of which can be seen in the eastern wall. This made a nice visual balance to the eastern wall of the Har Habayis, as it had towers on both ends. At 20.3 meters (66 ft 7 in) away from the southern corner of the eastern wall, a vertical line, or offset, can be seen in the wall, starting five stone courses below the floor of Shlomo's stables. This line is created from the stones on the south side of it projecting slightly from the wall. As the wall gets higher, and each stone course of it is set back more, the projection deepens. This is not a separate building than the rest of the wall, as is shown from the fact that the projection is sometimes cut out of the same stone, with the northern part of the stone being cut so it doesn't project as much as the southern side. Based on remains inside Shlomo's stables, Shaul Schaffer estimates that the tower extended 17 meters (56 feet) to the west. By this corner of the Har Habayis, remains of a blocked-up window, two stone courses high, can be seen in the southern wall, and three windows, each one three courses high, can be seen in the eastern wall. the lintels of the eastern windows are actually the springers of a vault, showing that the chambers in the tower had a vaulted roof. reference
Conder, Claude Reignier, and Warren, Charles. The Survey of Western Palestine: Jerusalem. London, 1884 Gibson, Shimon and David Jacobson (1996), Below the Temple Mount in Jerusalem: A Sourcebook on the Cisterns, Subterranean Chambers and Conduits of the Haram Al-Sharif. Ritmeyer, Leen. The Quest: Revealing the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Israel: Carta, 2006.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Website updatesI have added the sefer Chochmas Hamishkan on the Mishkan to a new page, Sefarim on the Mishkan, under the sources heading. Categories
All
Archives
February 2024
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) |