Temple Mount Excavations Unearth the Monastery of the Virgins - The BAS Library
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Temple Mount Excavations Unearth the Monastery of the Virgins

By Eilat Mazar

For ten years, between 1968 and 1978, the area south of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem was intensively excavated by archaeologist Benjamin Mazar.1 His many spectacular discoveries included the remains of a monumental staircase that led up to the southern enclosure wall of the massive platform built by Herod to support the gleaming Temple that he had luxuriously rebuilt. Mazar also found a previously unknown caliph’s palace complex from the early Arab period (late 023seventh to early eighth century C.E.), a glorious era in Islamic history that also saw the construction of the golden Dome of the Rock […]

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Endnotes

1.

On behalf of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the Israel Exploration Society and the Israel Department of Antiquities (now the Israel Antiquities Authority).

2.

Qedem 29, which was published in 1989, is not part of the publication project.

3.

See Eilat Mazar, The Temple Mount Excavations in Jerusalem 1968–1978 Directed by Benjamin Mazar, Final Reports, vol. 2, The Byzantine and Early Islamic Periods, Qedem 43 (Jerusalem: Institute of Archaeology, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2003), with contributions by Donald T. Ariel, Anat Cohen-Weinberger, Leah Di Segni, Shulamit Hadad, Ya’akov Meshorer, Henk K. Mienis, Haggai Misgav, Oved Pele, Orit Peleg, Lior Shapira and Guy D. Stiebel.

4.

Josephus, The Jewish War 5.5.6 (Loeb translation).

5.

Mishnah, Sanhedrin 11.2.

6.

I am indebted to Orit Peleg, who wrote the chapter on chancel screens in the final report, for this discussion.

7.

See the discussion of Leah Di Segni, in her chapter on Greek inscriptions in Qedem 43 p. 124.

8.

John Wilkinson, Jerusalem Pilgrims Before the Crusades (Warminster, England: Aris & Phillips, 1977), p. 66.

9.

I am indebted to Guy D. Stiebel, who wrote the chapter on arms in the final report, for this discussion.