Jerusalem is the city that was proclaimed the capital of the Kingdom of Judea in 1,000 BCE and is the capital of Israel today. In the Second Temple era (597 BC – 70 AD) King Herod built what was to become Jerusalem’s archetypal archeological site on and around the Temple Mount. The Western Wall, part of the outward wall of the Second Temple courtyard, was built using stones up to 14 meters wide.
Tradition has it that this wall was built thanks to donations from the Jewish poor; and that it will never be destroyed. But only part of the ancient wall is visible at the Western Wall Plaza, one of Israel’s major attractions for tourists and locals who come there to pray or connect with ancestral energy.
Inside the Western Wall tunnels on the northern side of the plaza, guides show what archeologists discovered hidden from view: gigantic stones, Second Temple-era homes, ancient cisterns, constructions from the Muslim period, and an aqueduct from the Hasmonean period, among other treasures.