Triple Play

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This is an article for people who like puzzles. Not crossword puzzles, but stone puzzles: The challenge is to figure out what the stones were used for—not once, but at three different times, for three different purposes. In solving this puzzle, you will discover a theater, 042a latrine and a palace—all in Jerusalem.

The palace is easy. The stones were found in the wall of an eighth-century C.E. palace built adjacent to the Temple Mount by the Umayyads, the first Islamic dynasty (661–750 C.E.). It is called Umayyad Palace IV because it is the fourth in a series of Umayyad structures discovered in Jerusalem by Benjamin Mazar and Meir Ben-Dov between 1968 and 1978, unveiling a previously unknown period of Islamic glory in the city. The other three Umayyad palaces lie just south of the Temple Mount. One—probably belonging to the caliph—even had a bridge leading right onto the Temple Mount (or Haram esh-Sharif, the Noble Sanctuary, as it is called in Muslim tradition), giving direct access from the palace to the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock. The fourth Umayyad palace stood around the corner from the other three, on the west side 043of the Temple Mount, adjacent to what is known as Robinson’s Arch, a remnant of the spring of an arch attached to the western wall of the Temple Mount. Over this arch once ran a grand stairway leading up to the Temple Mount.

More recently, we directed additional excavations at the southwestern corner of the Temple Mount under the auspices of the Israel Antiquities Authority—and that is when the stones in question were detected in the wall of Umayyad Palace IV.

It seems the Umayyad palace builders liked to reuse stones that had served a previous purpose. As any tourist visiting the site can easily see, many of the stones in these Umayyad palaces are hewn Herodian ashlars (with their distinctive recessed margins and slightly raised center panels, or bosses), which had been taken from among the stones thrown down from the Temple Mount wall by the conquering Romans when they destroyed much of the city in 70 C.E.

When part of the Umayyad wall was dismantled in our excavation, 11 peculiar stones were discovered, all of them made of limestone. Nine of the stones have a channel or groove cut all the way across them, about 4.5 inches wide and 3 to 4 inches deep. In the middle of each stone the channel usually widens and deepens into a circular, basin-like depression about 10 to 12 inches in diameter and about 4.5 inches deep. It is important to note that these nine stones have a basin-like depression and not a hole that goes through them; the round 044depression functions as part of the channel. The channels are uniformly carved about 10 inches from one side of the stone and 18 to 19 inches from the other side. Clearly, the channel was originally cut in one continuous line (except in one case, where the channel makes a 90 degree turn).

Of the eleven stones, six had a simple, but lovely, cornice (a horizontal lip) projecting over a carved front face. Some of these six were found broken, but as complete stones, they would have uniformly measured nearly 15 inches high and 33 to 34 inches front to back, although they varied in length.

Four of the 11 stones have both a cornice and a channel cut across the top. In a few cases the channel runs from front to back, slicing through the cornice. It appears that the cornices on these stones were carved for an earlier use, and were no longer needed when the channels were made.

Particularly curious are two stones that have cornices but no channels. Instead, these two stones share a special feature that offers a critical clue to their original use: a rectangular niche. This niche is cut to the exact same size in both stones—18.5 inches long, 6.5 inches deep and (remember this!) 6.5 inches high—that is, 045about half the height of the stones themselves (almost 15 inches). The niche is hewn into the top of the stone at the corniced edge. Moreover, the lines carved into the front face on each stone make a 90 degree turn downward, following the line of the niche rather than the cornice protruding across the top. It is clear that the cornice, the carved front and the niche were all hewn into the stone at the same time—but for what purpose?

In short, looking at all 11 stones from the Umayyad palace wall together, it appears that some had two previous uses. The six stones with cornices were originally used for one purpose—obviously in a structure with a cornice—and four of those six later were given channels for another, unrelated use. All the stones were eventually reused as part of the Umayyad palace wall.

Our solution to the puzzle, as indicated earlier, is this: The corniced stones were first used as seats or stair steps in a theater. The theater was later dismantled or destroyed and some of those stones were then cut again and reused—in a latrine. The latrine was most likely part of an old Roman-Byzantine bathhouse in the same area where, centuries later, the Umayyad builders planned to erect the palace. Those builders dismantled the latrine and reused its stones in one of the palace walls.

How did we arrive at this conclusion? Remember, the niches are about half the height 046of the original stones (6.5 inches versus almost 15 inches), about the right size to be part of an ascending stairway (scalaria) that separates two blocks of terraced stone theater seats. The niche forms one step, and the top of the stone, which is the height of the seat, forms the next step—followed by another niche, and so on.

Another clue was that each of the two stones with niches (that formed part of the stairway) bears a Greek inscription. One inscription consists of the letters DI (delta–iota) and the other, DIO (delta–iota–omicron). Greek letters, representing either numbers or words, are found in many classical Greek theaters, especially at the edge of rows of seats near the staircase. They might indicate the number of the row, or perhaps the group of spectators assigned to this row. In the Levant, Greek names are incised on top of rows of seats near the stairway at theaters in Neapolis (ancient Shechem and modern Nablus) and in Gerasa.

Several decades ago, Nahman Avigad of Hebrew University uncovered two inscribed bone disks in his excavations of one of the mansions in what he called the Upper City of Jerusalem, west of the Temple Mount.^a Both disks were inscribed with the number 14, one in Greek and Latin, the other just in Latin. The Greek number 14 is written ID, the very same inscription we found next to the niche, which would have been part of a stairway on one of the rows of seats. Avigad tentatively identified the disks as 047theater tickets. This new evidence of a local theater seems to prove Avigad right.

Unfortunately, we cannot affix a precise date to the theater, because two different theaters are known from the historical record. The first-century C.E. Jewish historian Josephus tells us that Herod built a theater in Jerusalem while the Temple still stood on the Temple Mount. Another ancient text, the Chronicon Paschale (a Byzantine Christian chronology of events from Adam to 627 C.E.), tells us that a theater was located in the second-century C.E. Roman city of Jerusalem, which had been renamed Aelia Capitolina.

The corniced stones that did not have niches probably came from the middle of a row, not on an aisle. Later these stone theater seats were put to use in a public latrine. They were not used as toilet seats, however. The stones, which were of uniform width, were laid side by side on the ground in front of the seats, and the grooves cut into these stones together formed a continuous flushing channel. Similar flushing channels have been found at communal latrines in Beth-Shean, Caesarea Maritima and throughout the Roman Empire.

The user sat on a toilet seat at a higher level. That there was some sort of seat above is plainly indicated by holes about 1.5 inches wide, 4 inches long and 1.5 inches deep, gouged into the top of the latrine stones near the edge. The legs of the toilet seat fit into these holes. We are familiar with such stone toilet seats from many other sites.

How then were these flushing channels used? Our best guess is that the round depressions held some kind of cleansing material—perhaps leaves or cloth. The channel was then cleared with a flow of water.

If BAR readers have other suggestions, we would be pleased to hear them.

This is an article for people who like puzzles. Not crossword puzzles, but stone puzzles: The challenge is to figure out what the stones were used for—not once, but at three different times, for three different purposes. In solving this puzzle, you will discover a theater, 042a latrine and a palace—all in Jerusalem. The palace is easy. The stones were found in the wall of an eighth-century C.E. palace built adjacent to the Temple Mount by the Umayyads, the first Islamic dynasty (661–750 C.E.). It is called Umayyad Palace IV because it is the fourth in a series […]