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Temple Mount
Hebrew: Har HaBayith
Israel-2013(2)-Aerial-Jerusalem-Temple Mount-Temple Mount (south exposure).jpg
view of Temple Mount
Highest point
Elevation 743 m (2,438 ft)
Geography
Location Jerusalem

The Temple Mount is a religious site in the Old City of Jerusalem. It is a holy place in Judaism and Islam.

In Judaism it is the location of the two Jewish Temples, and is believed to be the place where Adam was born, where Adam built an altar for God, where Cain and Abel offered their sacrifices, and where Abraham offered Isaac as a sacrifice. In Hebrew it is called Har haBáyit (הַר הַבַּיִת) or Har haMoria (הַר הַמוריה).

In Islam, the Temple Mount is believed to be the place where Muhammad ascended to Heaven. In Arabic it is known as the Haram (الحرم الشريف, al-Ḥaram al-Šarīf), which means "Noble Sanctuary".

It is also associated with Biblical prophets who are venerated in Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

Since the Crusades, the Muslim community of Jerusalem has managed the site through the Jerusalem Islamic Waqf. The site, along with the whole of East Jerusalem (which includes the Old City), was controlled by Jordan from 1948 until 1967 and has been occupied by Israel since the Six-Day War of 1967. Shortly after capturing the site, Israel handed its administration back to the Waqf under the Jordanian Hashemite custodianship, while maintaining Israeli security control. The Israeli government enforces a ban on prayer by non-Muslims as part of an arrangement usually referred to as the "status quo". The site remains a major focal point of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.

Location and dimensions

JerusalemTopography
Topographical map of Jerusalem, showing the Temple Mount on the eastern peak

The Temple Mount forms the northern portion of a very narrow spur of hill that slopes sharply downward from north to south. Rising above the Kidron Valley to the east and Tyropoeon Valley to the west, its peak reaches a height of 740 m (2,428 ft) above sea level. In around 19 BCE, Herod the Great extended the Mount's natural plateau by enclosing the area with four massive retaining walls and filling the voids. This artificial expansion resulted in a large flat expanse which today forms the eastern section of the Old City of Jerusalem. The trapezium shaped platform measures 488 m (1,601 ft) along the west, 470 m (1,540 ft) along the east, 315 m (1,033 ft) along the north and 280 m (920 ft) along the south, giving a total area of approximately 150,000 m2 (37 acres). The northern wall of the Mount, together with the northern section of the western wall, is hidden behind residential buildings. The southern section of the western flank is revealed and contains what is known as the Western Wall. The retaining walls on these two sides descend many meters below ground level. A northern portion of the western wall may be seen from within the Western Wall Tunnel, which was excavated through buildings adjacent to the platform. On the southern and eastern sides, the walls are visible almost to their full height. The platform itself is separated from the rest of the Old City by the Tyropoeon Valley, though this once deep valley is now largely hidden beneath later deposits and is imperceptible in places. The platform can be reached via Gate of the Chain Street – a street in the Muslim Quarter at the level of the platform, actually sitting on a monumental bridge; the bridge is no longer externally visible due to the change in ground level, but it can be seen from beneath via the Western Wall Tunnel.

Heritage site

In 1980, Jordan proposed that the Old City be listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site and it was added to the List in 1981. In 1982, it was added to the List of World Heritage in Danger.

On 26 October 2016, UNESCO passed the Occupied Palestine Resolution that condemned Israeli escalating aggression and illegal measures against the waqf, called for the restoration of Muslim access and demanded that Israel respect the historical status quo and also criticized Israel for its continuous "refusal to let the body's experts access Jerusalem's holy sites to determine their conservation status". While the text acknowledged the "importance of the Old City of Jerusalem and its walls for the three monotheistic religions", it referred to the sacred hilltop compound in Jerusalem's Old City only by its Muslim name Al-Haram al-Sharif.

In response, Israel denounced the UNESCO resolution for its omission of the words "Temple Mount" or "Har HaBayit", stating that it denied Jewish ties to the site. Israel froze all ties with UNESCO. In October 2017, Israel and the United States announced they would withdraw from UNESCO, citing anti-Israel bias.

On 6 April 2022, UNESCO unanimously adopted a resolution reiterating all 21 previous resolutions concerned with Jerusalem.

History

Pre-Israelite

The hill is believed to have been inhabited since the 4th millennium BCE. An amulet bearing the cartouche of Thutmose III (r. 1479 – 1425 BCE) was discovered by the Temple Mount Sifting Project at the site in 2012.

Israelite period

According to archeologists, the Temple Mount served as the center of the religious life of biblical Jerusalem as well as the royal acropolis of the Kingdom of Judah. The First Temple is believed to have once been a part of a much larger royal complex. The Bible also mentions several other buildings constructed by Solomon at the site, including the royal palace, the "House of the Lebanon Forest", the "Hall of Pillars", the "Hall of Throne" and the "House of Pharaoh's Daughter". Some scholars believe that, in accordance with biblical accounts, the royal and religious compound on the Temple Mount was built by Solomon during the 10th century BCE as a separate entity, which was later incorporated into the city. Knauf argued that the Temple Mount already served as the cultic and governmental center of Jerusalem as early as in the Late Bronze Age. Alternatively, Na'aman suggested that Solomon built the Temple on a much smaller scale than the one described in the Bible, which was enlarged or rebuilt during the 8th century BCE. In 2014, Finkelstein, Koch and Lipschits proposed that the tell of ancient Jerusalem lies beneath the modern-day compound, rather than the nearby archeological site known as the City of David, as mainstream archaeology believes; however, this proposal was rejected by other scholars of the subject.

Imer bulla
The Immer Bulla (7th–6th century BCE), written in the Paleo-Hebrew script, was discovered during the Temple Mount Sifting Project. It bears the name Immer, recorded in the Bible as the name of a major office holder in Solomon's Temple

All scholars agree that the Iron Age Temple Mount was smaller than the Herodian compound still visible today. Some scholars, such as Kenyon and Ritmeyer, argued that the walls of the First Temple compound extended eastward as far as the Eastern Wall. Ritmeyer identifies specific courses of visible ashlars located on to the northern and south of the Golden Gate as Judean Iron Age in style, dating them to the construction of this wall by Hezekiah. More such stones are supposed to survive underground. Ritmeyer has also suggested that one of the steps leading to the Dome of the Rock is actually the top of a remaining stone course of the western wall of the Iron Age compound.

שרידים מבית המקדש בהר הבית
Remains of a wall in the northwest part of the elevated platform. Ritmeyer suggested that it is the top of a remaining stone course of the western wall of the Iron Age compound

The First Temple was destroyed in 587/586 BCE by the Neo-Babylonian Empire under Nebuchadnezzar II.

Persian, Hellenistic and Hasmonean periods

Construction of the Second Temple began under Cyrus in around 538 BCE and was completed in 516 BCE. It was built at the original site of Solomon's Temple.

According to Patrich and Edelcopp, the ideal area of the complex, described in Ezekiel as 50x50 cubits, was attained by the Hasmoneans, perhaps under John Hyrcanus; this is the same size later mentioned by the Mishnah.

Evidence of a Hasmonean expansion of the Temple Mount has been recovered by archaeologist Leen Ritmeyer.

In 67 BCE a quarrel broke out between Aristobulus II and Hyrcanus II on the Hasmonean throne. Roman general Pompey, who had been invited to intervene in the conflict, decided to side with Hyrcanus; Aristobulus and his followers barricaded themselves inside the Temple Mount and destroyed the bridge linking it to the city. When the Roman Army arrived in Jerusalem, Pompey ordered the moat defending the Temple Mount from the north to be filled in. To accomplish this, Pompey waited for Sabbaths, so the defenders would not disrupt the work. After a three-month siege, the Romans were able to topple one of the guard towers and storm the Temple Mount. Pompey himself entered the Holy of Holies, but did not harm the Temple, and allowed the priests to continue their work as usual.

Herodian and early Roman periods

Around 19 BCE, Herod the Great further expanded the Temple Mount and rebuilt the temple. The ambitious project, which involved the employment of 10,000 workers, more than doubled the size of the Temple Mount to approximately 36 acres (150,000 m2). Herod leveled the area by cutting away rock on the northwest side and raising the sloping ground to the south. He achieved this by constructing huge buttress walls and vaults and filling the necessary sections with earth and rubble. The result was the largest temenos in the ancient world.

The main entrances to the Herodian Temple Mount were two sets of gates built into the southern wall, together with four other gates reachable from the western side by stairs and bridges. Grand stoas encircled the platform on three sides, and on its southern side stood a magnificent basilica Josephus referred to as the Royal Stoa. The Royal Stoa served as a center for the city's commercial and legal transactions, and was provided with separate access to the city below via the Robinson's Arch overpass. The Temple itself and its courts were located on an elevated platform in the middle of the larger compound. In addition to the restoration of the Temple, its courtyards and porticoes, Herod also built the Antonia Fortress, which dominated the northwestern corner of the Temple Mount, and a rainwater reservoir, Birket Israel, in the northeast. A monumental street, today referred to as the "Stepped Street" and took pilgrims from the city's southern gate via the Tyropoeon Valley to the western side of the Temple Mount. It has been proposed in 2019 that Pontius Pilate constructed the road during the 30s.

During the early phases of the First Jewish-Roman War (66–70 CE), the Temple Mount became a center of fighting for various Jewish factions struggling for control of the city, with different factions holding the area during the conflict. In April 70, the Roman army under Titus reached Jerusalem and began besieging the city. It took the Romans four months to defeat the Temple Mount's defenders and take the site. The Romans completely destroyed the Temple and all the other structures on the platform. Massive stone collapses from the upper walls were discovered laying over the Herodian street that runs along the southern part of the Western Wall, with some of the stones burned at temperatures reaching 800 °C (1472 °F). The Trumpeting Place inscription, a monumental Hebrew inscription which was thrown down by Roman legionnaires, was found in one of these stone piles.

NinthAvStonesWesternWall
Stone piles (along the western wall, near the southern end) from the walls of the Temple Mount
To the trumpeting place
The Trumpeting Place inscription, a stone (2.43x1 m) with Hebrew inscription לבית התקיעה להב "To the Trumpeting Place" excavated by Benjamin Mazar at the southern foot of the Temple Mount is believed to be a part of the Second Temple.

Middle Roman period

The city of Aelia Capitolina was built in 130 CE by the Roman emperor Hadrian and occupied by a Roman colony on the site of Jerusalem, which was still in ruins from the First Jewish Revolt in 70 CE. Aelia came from Hadrian's nomen gentile, Aelius, while Capitolina meant that the new city was dedicated to Jupiter Capitolinus, to whom a temple was built overlapping the site of the former second Jewish temple, the Temple Mount.

Hadrian had intended the construction of the new city as a gift to the Jews, but since he had constructed a giant statue of himself in front of the Temple of Jupiter and the Temple of Jupiter had a huge statue of Jupiter inside of it, there were on the Temple Mount now two enormous graven images, which Jews considered idolatrous. It was also customary in Roman rites to sacrifice a pig in land purification ceremonies. After the Third Jewish Revolt, all Jews were forbidden on pain of death from entering the city or the surrounding territory around the city.

Late Roman period

Roman Centaur Tile of Al-Aqsa Mosque
Roman centaur relief (135–325 CE) reused as a floor panel in al-Aqsa Mosque, found during restoration work in the 1930s

From the first through the seventh centuries Christianity spread throughout the Roman Empire, gradually became the predominant religion of Palestine and under the Byzantines Jerusalem itself was almost completely Christian, with most of the population being Jacobite Christians of the Syrian rite.

Emperor Constantine I promoted the Christianization of Roman society, giving it precedence over pagan cults. One consequence was that Hadrian's Temple to Jupiter on the Temple Mount was demolished immediately following the First Council of Nicea in 325 CE on orders of Constantine.

The Bordeaux Pilgrim, who visited Jerusalem in 333–334, during the reign of Emperor Constantine I, wrote that "There are two statues of Hadrian, and, not far from them, a pierced stone to which the Jews come every year and anoint. They mourn and rend their garments, and then depart." The occasion is assumed to have been Tisha b'Av, since decades later Jerome related that that was the only day on which Jews were permitted to enter Jerusalem.

Constantine's nephew Emperor Julian granted permission in the year 363 for the Jews to rebuild the Temple. In a letter attributed to Julian he wrote to the Jews that "This you ought to do, in order that, when I have successfully concluded the war in Persia, I may rebuild by my own efforts the sacred city of Jerusalem, which for so many years you have longed to see inhabited, and may bring settlers there, and, together with you, may glorify the Most High God therein." Julian saw the Jewish God as a fitting member of the pantheon of gods he believed in, and he was also a strong opponent of Christianity. Church historians wrote that the Jews began to clear away the structures and rubble on the Temple Mount but were thwarted, first by a great earthquake, and then by miracles that included fire springing from the earth. However, no contemporary Jewish sources mention this episode directly.

Byzantine period

During his excavations in the 1930s, Robert Hamilton uncovered portions of a multicolor mosaic floor with geometric patterns inside al-Aqsa mosque, but did not publish them. The date of the mosaic is disputed: Zachi Dvira considers that they are from the pre-Islamic Byzantine period, while Baruch, Reich and Sandhaus favor a much later Umayyad origin on account of their similarity to a known Umayyad mosaic.

Sassanid period

In 610, the Sassanid Empire drove the Byzantine Empire out of the Middle East, giving the Jews control of Jerusalem for the first time in centuries. The Jews in Palestine were allowed to set up a vassal state under the Sassanid Empire called the Sassanid Jewish Commonwealth which lasted for five years. Jewish rabbis ordered the restart of animal sacrifice for the first time since the time of Second Temple and started to reconstruct the Jewish Temple. Shortly before the Byzantines took the area back five years later in 615, the Persians gave control to the Christian population, who tore down the partially built Jewish Temple edifice and turned it into a garbage dump, which is what it was when the Rashidun Caliph Umar took the city in 637.

Early Muslim period

SWqanatirTempleMount
Southwest qanatir (arches) of the Haram al Sharif, Qubat al-Nahawiyya is also partially visible to the right.

In 637 Arabs besieged and captured the city from the Byzantine Empire, which had defeated the Persian forces and their allies, and reconquered the city. There are no contemporary records, but many traditions, about the origin of the main Islamic buildings on the mount. A popular account from later centuries is that the Rashidun Caliph Umar was led to the place reluctantly by the Christian patriarch Sophronius. He found it covered with rubbish, but the sacred Rock was found with the help of a converted Jew, Ka'b al-Ahbar. Al-Ahbar advised Umar to build a mosque to the north of the rock, so that worshippers would face both the rock and Mecca, but instead Umar chose to build it to the south of the rock. It became known as al-Aqsa Mosque. According to Muslim sources, Jews participated in the construction of the haram, laying the groundwork for both al-Aqsa and the Dome of the Rock mosques. The first known eyewitness testimony is that of the pilgrim Arculf who visited about 670. According to Arculf's account as recorded by Adomnán, he saw a rectangular wooden house of prayer built over some ruins, large enough to hold 3,000 people.

In 691 an octagonal Islamic building topped by a dome was built by the Caliph Abd al-Malik around the rock, for a myriad of political, dynastic and religious reasons, built on local and Quranic traditions articulating the site's holiness, a process in which textual and architectural narratives reinforced one another. The shrine became known as the Dome of the Rock (قبة الصخرة, Qubbat as-Sakhra). (The dome itself was covered in gold in 1920.) In 715 the Umayyads, led by the Caliph al-Walid I, built al-Aqsa Mosque (المسجد الأقصى, al-Masjid al-'Aqṣā, lit. "Furthest Mosque"), corresponding to the Islamic belief of Muhammad's miraculous nocturnal journey as recounted in the Quran and hadith. The term "Noble Sanctuary" or "Haram al-Sharif", as it was called later by the Mamluks and Ottomans, refers to the whole area that surrounds that Rock.

Crusader and Ayyubid period

Baldwin II ceeding the Temple of Salomon to Hugues de Payens and Gaudefroy de Saint-Homer
Baldwin II of Jerusalem, assigning the captured Al-Aqsa Mosque to Hugues de Payens and Godfrey

The Crusader period began in 1099 with the First Crusade's capture of Jerusalem. After the city's conquest, the Crusading order known as the Knights Templar was granted use of Al-Aqsa Mosque to use as their headquarters. This was probably by Baldwin II of Jerusalem and Warmund, Patriarch of Jerusalem at the Council of Nablus in January 1120. The Temple Mount had a mystique because it was above what were believed to be the ruins of the Temple of Solomon. The Crusaders therefore referred to al-Aqsa Mosque as Solomon's Temple, and it was from this location that the new Order took the name of "Poor Knights of Christ and the Temple of Solomon", or "Templar" knights.

In 1187, once he retook Jerusalem, Saladin removed all traces of Christian worship from the Temple Mount, returning the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa Mosque to their Muslim purposes. It remained in Muslim hands thereafter, even during the relatively short periods of Crusader rule following the Sixth Crusade.

Mamluk period

There are several Mamluk buildings on and around the Haram esplanade, such as the late 15th-century al-Ashrafiyya Madrasa and Sabil (fountain) of Qaytbay. The Mamluks also raised the level of Jerusalem's Central or Tyropoean Valley bordering the Temple Mount from the west by constructing huge substructures, on which they then built on a large scale. The Mamluk-period substructures and over-ground buildings are thus covering much of the Herodian western wall of the Temple Mount.

Ottoman period

Following the Ottoman conquest of Palestine in 1516, the Ottoman authorities continued the policy of prohibiting non-Muslims from setting foot on the Temple Mount until the early 19th century, when non-Muslims were again permitted to visit the site.

Dome of the Rock, from Governor's House, Francis Bedford 1862
Temple Mount, photographed by Francis Bedford, 1862

In 1867, a team from the Royal Engineers, led by Lieutenant Charles Warren and financed by the Palestine Exploration Fund (P.E.F.), discovered a series of tunnels near the Temple Mount. Warren secretly excavated some tunnels near the Temple Mount walls and was the first one to document their lower courses. Warren also conducted some small-scale excavations inside the Temple Mount, by removing rubble that blocked passages leading from the Double Gate chamber.

British Mandatory period

Between 1922 and 1924, the Dome of the Rock was restored by the Islamic Higher Council. The Zionist movement at the time was strongly opposed to any notion that the Temple itself might be rebuilt.

Jordanian period

King Hussein flying over Temple Mount when it was under Jordanian control
King Hussein flying over the Temple Mount while it was under Jordanian control, 1965

Jordan undertook two renovations of the Dome of the Rock, replacing the leaking, wooden inner dome with an aluminum dome in 1952, and, when the new dome leaked, carrying out a second restoration between 1959 and 1964.

Neither Israeli Arabs nor Israeli Jews could visit their holy places in the Jordanian territories during this period.

Israeli period

IDF Paratroopers UNIT. X
Israeli paratroopers entering the Temple Mount through the Lions Gate in 1967

On 7 June 1967, during the Six-Day War, Israeli forces advanced beyond the 1949 Armistice Agreement Line into West Bank territories, taking control of the Old City of Jerusalem, inclusive of the Temple Mount.

The Chief Rabbi of the Israeli Defense Forces, Shlomo Goren, led the soldiers in religious celebrations on the Temple Mount and at the Western Wall. The Israeli Chief Rabbinate also declared a religious holiday on the anniversary, called "Yom Yerushalayim" (Jerusalem Day), which became a national holiday to commemorate the reunification of Jerusalem.

The Temple Mount remains, under the terms of the 1994 Israel–Jordan peace treaty, under Jordanian custodianship.

Management and access

Temple Mount entry restrictions 2
A security gate guarding the entrance to the site.

An Islamic Waqf has managed the Temple Mount continuously since the Muslim reconquest of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem in 1187. On June 7, 1967, soon after Israel had taken control of the area during the Six-Day War, Prime Minister Levi Eshkol assured that "no harm whatsoever shall come to the places sacred to all religions". Together with the extension of Israeli jurisdiction and administration over east Jerusalem, the Knesset passed the Preservation of the Holy Places Law, ensuring protection of the Holy Places against desecration, as well as freedom of access thereto. The site remains within the area controlled by the State of Israel, with administration of the site remaining in the hands of the Jerusalem Islamic Waqf.

Although freedom of access was enshrined in the law, as a security measure, the Israeli government currently enforces a ban on non-Muslim prayer on the site. Non-Muslims who are observed praying on the site are subject to expulsion by the police. At various times, when there is fear of Arab rioting upon the mount resulting in throwing stones from above towards the Western Wall Plaza, Israel has prevented Muslim men under 45 from praying in the compound, citing these concerns. Sometimes such restrictions have coincided with Friday prayers during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. Normally, West Bank Palestinians are allowed access to Jerusalem only during Islamic holidays, with access usually restricted to men over 35 and women of any age eligible for permits to enter the city. Palestinian residents of Jerusalem, which because of Israel's annexation of Jerusalem, hold Israeli permanent residency cards, and Israeli Arabs, are permitted unrestricted access to the Temple Mount. The Mughrabi Gate is the only entrance to the Temple Mount accessible to non-Muslims.

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See also

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