Endnote 20 – Locating the Original Temple Mount

Tsafrir (“Location of the Seleucid Akra,” pp. 85–86) accepts the southeastern hill of Jerusalem for the location of the Akra and correctly places it to the south of the Temple, indeed close to our suggested location. We prefer, however, to place the Akra near the center of the southern Temple Mount wall, above cistern 11, from which it would have been easier to control the ciry and the southern access to the Temple Mount, and not near the southeast corner, as Tsafrir suggests. It would have been better to construct a fortress that could overlook the Temple Mount at the summit of the southeastern hill, rather than on the much lower slopes near the southeastern corner. Tsafrir’s suggestion of identifying the masonry to the north of the “straight joint” in the eastern wall with the foundation of the Akra contradicts the statement of Josephus that the Akra was razed to the ground; it seems more logical to identify this stretch of Hellenistic masonry with the enlargement of the Temple Mount during the Hasmonean period.