During ongoing excavations near the Old City of Jerusalem, archaeologists from the Israel Antiquities Department discovered what could have been a 2,000-year-old city council building – a few hundred meters from its modern counterpart.
The grand building is a new feature of the renewed tour of the Western Wall tunnels, which allows tourists to visit the millennial city, which exists in the deformation of time under today’s prosperous capital.
“This is without a doubt one of the most beautiful public buildings of the Second Temple period ever discovered outside the walls of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem,” excavation director Dr. Shlomit Wexler-Bdeliy said in an IAA press release Thursday.
Built around 20 AD, the Roman-era building stood on the main road leading to the Temple Mount and was used as a triclinium or dining room for famous members of society who went on worship, according to the IAA. Originally built with a lush fountain and decorative Corinthian capitals, this impressive building underwent a number of structural changes in the 50 years of use before the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 AD, Wexler-Bdelii told The Times of Israel.
The huge structure will soon be open to the public as part of the Western Wall Tunnel Tour, which has been modified to create different paths and impressions based on several new routes that cross millennial history, thanks to the modern use of tunnel details as prayer and celebration halls.
According to Wexler-Bdolakh, at first archaeologists thought that the “town hall” was built in the earlier period of the Hasmoneans. Located west of Wilson’s Arch, near the men’s prayer pavilion in the Western Wall, one of the chambers was discovered and documented in the 19th century by Charles Warren. Other archaeologists also studied the room in the 20th century.
However, taking part of the ancient floor and dating carbon-14 on organic materials from the base of the building, as well as finding coins and shards of pottery, archaeologists believe that this magnificent building was not earlier than 20 AD. She noted that because the site was only partially excavated – to preserve other important underground structures of other eras – it is more difficult to accurately date and study it. “Every building is important; we can’t dismantle all the buildings, “she said.
What archaeologists really know is that in 50 years of occupation, Wexler-Bdeli said, the large public building was divided into three different spaces, the fountain was taken out of use, and something resembling a ritual bath or mikvah was added.
According to Wexler-Bdolach, despite the apparent influence of the Romans on the architecture of the house, Jerusalem at that time still remained a Jewish city in cultural terms. In the decorations found in the premises – a stucco cornice with pilasters (flat support pillars) – there were no carved images prohibited by the Torah.
She said the hall was most likely used by the city authorities, not the Temple, who wanted to impress their guests.
“Visitors to this place can now imagine the richness of this place: the two side rooms served as lush receptions, and between them was a magnificent fountain of water flowing from lead pipes built into the middle of the Corinthian capitals protruding from the wall,” – said in a statement. Weksler-Bdolach.
There are a few more puzzles to solve around the building. First, what was the source of water for the fountain? Wexler-Bdeli laughed and said it was a “million-dollar question,” but the researchers’ working hypothesis was that because pure fresh water was probably used, it was filled in manually through a complex system of lead water pipelines. According to her, the fountain was probably used only to make a sensation among especially important VIPs.
Two “living” cities in parallel
To get a tour of the tunnels of the Western Wall, visitors descend under the noisy, lively Jerusalem and return in time, getting to the well-preserved ancient ancient city.
“There are several cities under the city in Jerusalem,” Wexler-Bdeli said, “especially under the Old City.”
According to Shahar Puni, an architect with Israel’s Department of Antiquities, one of the interesting and unique features of ancient Jerusalem is that many entire sections have remained completely intact underground.
According to her, in most cases, new construction was carried out on top of old buildings, with domed ceilings that served as the basis of the building, and still untouched premises under them were used as basements, tanks or even living quarters.
According to Puni, now with the changed routes, visitors can get acquainted with the various elements, time periods and purposes of the underground city. For example, tourists who are only interested in ancient archeology will no longer encounter today’s prayer halls – and vice versa.
“There is a feeling that the whole underworld is parallel to the ‘living world’ above the earth,” Puni said. Unlike visiting other archeological sites “in the open air” in Israel, such as Caesarea or Megiddo, in the underground universe of Jerusalem, “the visitor has a sense of the whole world, which has not been destroyed.”
Mordecai Soli Elia, head of the Wailing Wall Heritage Foundation, said: “It is a pleasure to open such a magnificent building of the Second Temple period as we mourn the destruction of Jerusalem and pray for its restoration.” A new section of the Tunnel Tour is to be opened before the Jewish month of Elul, just before Rosh Hashanah, just during the traditional Slihot, or penitential prayers.
“What is strange is that a living city is moving above the ground, and at the same time – a whole world that was frozen, but still lives in the archaeological sphere, one under the other,” Puni said.