Footnote 1 – Tunnel Exposes New Areas of Temple Mount

The First Temple was built by King Solomon in the tenth century B.C. and was destroyed in 586 B.C. by the Babylonians. The Second Temple period began with the restoration of Solomon’s temple by the Jews who resumed from the Babylonian exile in 539 B.C. This restored Temple was greatly improved and the area of the Temple Mount was doubled by Herod the Great in the first century B.C. Herod’s Temple, often referred to as the Second Temple, was destroyed by the Romans in 70 A.D. It is said that the Romans left standing most of the Temple Mount retaining walls to commemorate the magnitude of their victory over the Jews in the first century.