Holy City Building Blocks

COURTESY OF EMIL ALADJEM, ISRAEL ANTIQUITIES AUTHORITY

In the area of Har Hotzvim in northwestern Jerusalem, excavators with the Israel Antiquities Authority are exposing the secrets of an immense stone quarry that likely supplied the primary building material for major projects in Jerusalem during the Second Temple period. Although only about an acre of the quarry has been revealed so far, it is clear that most of the stone taken from the site was in the form of massive 2.5-ton slabs that measured nearly 8 feet long.

These immense blocks would have been used in major royal building projects such as those undertaken during the reign of Herod the Great (r. 37–4 BCE), including the Temple Mount and the Jerusalem Temple itself, both of which were renovated and expanded during this period. Later projects, such as the “Third Wall”—an outer fortification line completed in advance of the Great Jewish Revolt (66–74 CE)—and other fortifications, palaces, and public buildings presumably relied on the same stone quarry.

Interestingly, archaeologists also confirmed a connection between the stone from this quarry and that used to pave the Pilgrimage Road, a major Second Temple period thoroughfare that ran through what is now the City of David, just south of Jerusalem’s Old City. The paving stones share not only the same general dimensions as the blocks discovered at the quarry, but also the same geological signature.