Religious Site
Western Wall
WES-tern WAWL · Modern Western Wall, Old City, Jerusalem, Israel · 31.7767° N, 35.2345° E
The Western Wall is the surviving section of the massive retaining wall Herod the Great built around 19 BC to expand the Temple Mount platform for the Second Temple — the temple Jesus is described as visiting and teaching at throughout the Gospels. It remains the holiest site accessible to Jews today.
Archaeology
The lower seven courses of large, precisely dressed ashlar stones with distinctive chiseled margins are original Herodian masonry; one stone, the "Western Stone," is estimated to weigh 250-300 tons. Excavations along the wall's base have uncovered a Herodian-period street, and coins found beneath foundation stones suggest construction continued after Herod's death into the reign of Agrippa II. Later courses above the Herodian layer date to the Umayyad and Mamluk periods.
On a modern map
Further reading
Reflect
Prayers written on slips of paper fill the Western Wall's cracks — if you wrote one line to leave in the wall, what would it say?
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