Rabbi Barnea Selevan, an Old City expert and a veteran tour guide in Jerusalem, is excited about a series of archaeological digs in the vicinity of the Western Wall that are peeling back layers of history and illustrating historical events at the center of the Jewish universe.
For the past several years, the Western Wall Heritage Foundation has sponsored excavations at the back of the plaza, and workers have uncovered part of a Roman colonnaded street dating back to the second century C.E. But ignored until recently, according to Selevan, were several small stone buildings, overgrown and blocked by material from the dig.
“When I look down from the street … several levels above the site, those old walls are the most exciting thing I see,” Selevan said. “There’s no question they’re from First Temple times.” Seals from the Temple were found nearby. The walls, according to some archaeologists, are from homes that were abandoned but not destroyed after the Roman onslaught at Jerusalem in 70 C.E.
Selevan described the “delicious” discovery of a “fancy Roman bathhouse” two stories underground on Ha’omer Street, in today’s Jewish Quarter, which lies above the Western Wall Plaza. The bathhouse was found in the course of constructing of a new mikvah (ritual bath) for men. “In all likelihood, the bathhouse was used by the Roman 10th Legion,” he said, “the same guys who thought they were wiping out the Jews.”
The trauma of the Roman plunder of Jerusalem can be seen at several locations in the City of David, located a few hundred yards from the Western Wall, to the southeast of the Dung Gate.
Aharon Horowitz, director of Megalim, the Institute of Jerusalem Studies of the City of David, points out that the drainage channel underneath the Herodian-era street in what is known as the Pilgrims Ascent area of the City of David was used by Jews hiding from the Romans. A Roman sword was found in the channel.
According to University of Haifa archaeologist Ronny Reich, who has worked in the area for decades, the smashed paving stones indicate that the Romans broke through the street to the channel below to drag out the Jews who tried to flee in the last days of the siege.
Across the road from the City of David Visitors Center is the Givati parking lot site, the largest archeological excavation in Jerusalem. “Every day there are new finds here,” Horowitz said. “There are remains here of every strata of Jerusalem history.”
One of the most magnificent is the floor of a building considered by some experts to be the first-century palace of Queen Helena of Adiabene, who converted to Judaism.
In addition to the digs and excavations below today’s city, significant conservation and restoration has been completed on the Old City walls. Over the past six years, the Jerusalem Development Company, Prime Minister’s Office and Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) have restored all four kilometers of the city walls erected in the 16th century by Sultan Suleiman, and all seven gates of the Old City. The last time rehabilitation work was done on the walls was in the 1920s, during the British Mandate.
Today, visitors can walk an accessible path along the wall between Jaffa Gate and Zion Gate, touch the ancient stones and peer into small caves dotting the wall’s base.
Other, smaller discoveries will end up in museums, but still tell a story about Jewish life in Temple times. A tiny button-size object of fired clay stamped with a two-line Aramaic inscription is one of the most intriguing recent finds.
According to archaeologists Reich and Eli Shukron of the IAA, the meaning of the inscription is “Pure for God.” Like a modern-day kashrut seal, the object was probably used to mark products or objects that were brought to the Temple and had to be ritually pure.
“This stamped impression is probably the kind referred to in the Mishnah,” Shukron and Reich said. “To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time that such an object or anything similar to it was discovered in an archaeological excavation, and it constitutes direct archaeological evidence of the activity on the Temple Mount and the workings of the Temple during the Second Temple period.”