 Israeli
archaeologists said they have discovered a quarry that
provided King Herod with the stones he used to renovate the
biblical Second Temple compound — offering rare insight into
construction of the holiest site in Judaism.
The
source of the huge stones used 2,000 years ago to
reconstruct the compound in Jerusalem's Old City was
discovered on the site of a proposed school in a Jerusalem
suburb.
Today, the compound Herod renovated houses
the most explosive religious site in the Holy Land, known as
the Temple Mount to Jews and the Noble Sanctuary to Muslims.
"This is the first time stones which were used to build
the Temple Mount walls were found," said Yuval Baruch, an
archaeologist with the Israeli Antiquities Authority
involved in the dig.
Quarries mined for the massive
stones, each weighing more than 20 tons, eluded researchers
until now, he said Sunday.
Baruch said coins and
pottery found in the quarry confirm the stone was used
during the period of Herod's expansion of the Temple Mount
in 19 B.C.
But researchers said the strongest piece
of evidence was found wedged into one of the massive cuts in
the white limestone — an iron stake used to split the stone.
The tool was apparently improperly used, accidentally
lodged in the stone and forgotten.
"It stayed here
for 2,000 years for us to find because a worker didn't know
what to do with it," said archaeologist Ehud Nesher, also of
the Antiquities Authority.
Nesher said the large
outlines of the stone cuts indicated the site was a massive
public project worked by hundreds of slaves.
"Nothing
private could have done this," Nesher said. "This is
Herod's, this is a sign of him."
Herod was the Jewish
proxy ruler of the Holy Land under imperial Roman occupation
from 37 B.C.
Herod's most famous construction project
was the renovation of the Temple, replacing a smaller
structure that itself replaced the First Temple, destroyed
by the Babylonians in 586 B.C.
Stephen Pfann,
president of the University of The Holy Land and an expert
in the Second Temple period, said the discovery was
encouraging.
"It would be very difficult to find any
other buildings in any other period that would warrant
stones of that size," said Pfann, who was not involved in
the dig.
He said further testing of the rock is
necessary to confirm the findings.
The Second Temple
was leveled by Roman conquerors in A.D. 70. The Western
Wall, the holiest prayer site for Jews, is the best known
surviving remnant.
Atop the adjacent compound, where
Jews believe the Temple once stood, now stand two of the
holiest sites in Islam, the al-Aqsa Mosque and the
gold-capped Dome of the Rock.
The site is at the
heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, with both sides
claiming the area. Israel captured Jerusalem's Old City from
Jordan during the 1967 Mideast war.
While retaining
security responsibility for the site, Israel allows Muslims
to handle day-to-day responsibilities there.
Source:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,297991,00.html?sPage=fnc/scitech/archaeology
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