Western Wall
The Western Wall by night.
The
Western Wall
Wailing Wall
orsimply the
Kotel
(lit. Wall; Ashkenazic pronunciation:
Kosel
), and as
al-Buraaq Wall
inArabic, is an important Jewish religious site located in the Old City of Jerusalem.Just over
half the wall, including its 17 courses located below street level, dates from the end ofthe Second Temple period, being constructed around 19 BCE by Herod the Great.The
remaining layers were added from the 7th century onwards.
Names of the wall
Early Jewish texts referred to a ―western wall of the Temple‖,
but there is doubt whether the texts were referring to today’s Western Wall or to another
wall which stood within the Temple complex. The earliest clear Jewish use of the termWestern Wall as referring to the wall visible today was by the 11th-century Ahimaaz benPaltiel
.The name ―Wailing Wall‖, and descriptions such as "wailing place" appeared
regularly in English literature during the 19th century. The name
Mur des Lamentations
wasused in French and
Klagemauer
in German. This term itself was a translation of theArabic
el-Mabka
, or "Place of Weeping," the traditional Arabic term for the wall. Thisdescription stemmed from the Jewish practice of coming to the site to mourn and bemoan
the destruction of the Temple.During the 1920s with the growing Arab-Jewish tensions over
rights at the wall, the Arabs began referring to the wall as al-Buraq. This was based on thetradition that the wall was the place whereMuhammad tethered his miraculous winged
steed, Buraq.
Location and dimensions
thumb|upright=1.6|Panorama of the Western Wall with the Dome of the Rock (left) and al-Aqsa mosque (right) in the background. The Western Wall commonly refers to a 187 foot (57 m) exposed section of ancient wallsituated on the western flank of the Temple Mount.This section faces a large plaza and is
set aside for prayer. In its entirety, however, the above ground portion of the Western Wallstretches for , most of which is hidden behind residential structures built along its length.Other revealed sections include the southern part of the Wall which measuresapproximately and another much shorter section known as the Little Western Wallwhich is
located close to the Iron Gate.The wall functions as a retaining wall,built to support the
extensive renovations that Herod the Great carried out around 19 BCE. Herod expanded
the small quasi-natural plateau on which the First and Second Templesstood into the wide
expanse of the Temple Mount visible today.At the Western Wall Plaza, the total height of the Wall from its foundation is estimated at ,with the exposed section standing approximately high. The Wall consists of 45 stonecourses, 28 of them above ground and 17 underground. The first seven visible layers arefrom the Herodian period. This section of wall is built fromenormous meleke limestone stones, possibly quarried at either Zedekiah's Cave situated
under the Muslim Quarter of the Old City or at Ramat Shlomo four kilometers northwest of
the Old City. Most of them weigh between two and eight tons each, but others weigh even
more, with one extraordinary stone located in the northern section of Wilson's
Arch measuring 13 metres and weighing approximately 570 tons. Each of these stones issurrounded by fine-chiseled borders. The margins themselves measure between wide, withtheir depth measuring . In the Herodian period, the upper of wall were thick and served asthe other wall of the double colonnade of the plateau. This upper section was decorated
with pilasters, the remainder of which were destroyed at the beginning of the seventh
century when the Byzantines reconquered Jerusalem from the Persians and their Jewish
allies in 628.The next four layers were added by Umayyadsin the seventh century. The next fourteen
layers are from theOttoman period and their addition is attributed to Sir Moses
Montefiore
who in 1866 arranged that further layers be added ―for shade and protectionfrom the rain for all who come to pray by the holy remnant of our Temple‖.
The top threelayers were placed by the Mufti of Jerusalem before 1967.
History
Construction 19 BCE
Engraving printed in 1850
According to the Tanakh, Solomon's Temple was built atop the Temple Mount in the 10th
century BCE and destroyed by theBabylonians in 586 BCE. The Second Temple was
completed and dedicated in 516 BCE. In around 19 BCE Herod the Greatbegan a massive
expansion project on the Temple Mount. He artificially expanded the area which resulted inan enlarged platform. Today's Western Wall formed part of the retaining perimeter wall ofthis platform.Herod's Temple was destroyed by the Roman Empire,along with the rest of
Jerusalem, in 70 CE during the First Jewish-Roman War.
Roman Empire and rise of Christianity 100
–
500 CE
In the early centuries of the Christian Era,after the Roman defeat of the Bar Kokhba
revolt in 135 CE, Jews were banned from Jerusalem. There is some evidence that Romanemperors in the 2nd and 3rd centuries did permit them to visit the city to worship on theMount of Olives and sometimes on the Temple Mount itself.When the empire becameChristian under Constantine I,they were given permission to enter the city once a year, on
the ninth day of the month of Av, to lament the loss of the Temple at the wall. The Bordeaux
Pilgrim,written in 333 CE, suggests that it was probably to the perforated stone or the Rock
of Moriah, "to which the Jews come every year and anoint it, bewail themselves withgroans, rend their garments, and so depart". This was because an Imperial decree fromRome barred Jews from living in Jerusalem. Just once per year they were permitted toreturn and bitterly grieve about the fate of their people. Comparable accounts survive,including those by the Church Father, Gregory of Nazianzus and by Jerome in his
commentary to Zephaniahwritten in the year 392 CE. In the 4th century, Christian sources
reveal that the Jews encountered great difficulty in buying the right to pray near the WesternWall, at least on the 9th of Av. In 425 CE, the Jews of the Galilee wrote to Byzantineempress Aelia Eudocia seeking permission to pray by the ruins of the Temple. Permission
was granted and they were officially permitted to resettle in Jerusalem.
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