3/29/2011 - The Davidson Center

After breakfast we started touring at the Davidson Center, known as the Jerusalem Archaeological Park in the Old City.  This center is located near the corner of the West and Southern walls that surrounded the Temple Mount.  The Temple Mount is on Mt. Moriah where Abraham bound Isaac at the request of God, Isaac being spared by the viewing of a ram caught in the thicket.  The Muslims view this as their Dome of the Rock - the Rock being the location where Mohammad rose to heaven.

In the Davidson Center we reviewed the various ages and occupiers of Jerusalem history.  It began with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob during the Canaanite Period (3300 BCE).  The time of the first temple (1006 BCE) was known as the Israelite Period.  The first temple was destroyed in 586 BCE during a period known as the Babylonian Exile.  The Persians came in 538 BCE, the start of the second temple period.  It was destroyed by the Romans in 63 BCE and Jews were forbidden to be in Jerusalem until 1948 and from the Old City until 1967.  The Hellenistic Period began in 332 BCE and the Romans came in 63 BCE.  The Byzantines began in 324 and the Early Muslims in 638.  The Crusaders were in Jerusalem in 1099 with the Mameluke's following in 1260.  The Ottomans took Jerusalem in 1517 until they were overtaken by the British in 1917.  Jerusalem was returned in part to the Jews in 1948 when Israel became a state and was fully accessible to Jews following the 1967 Six-Day War.

We continued our tour of the area of the Southern Wall which has several additional done by the Ottomans and before them by the Romans and Crusaders.  We stood on the overlook of the Herodian Streets and looked upon the remnants of a ritual bath house and the location of the Robinson Arch, which was built on the South Side of the West Wall on one side and upon the supports of the shops on the other side of the Herodian Street.  We looked at the extremely large Herodian stones that are identifyable by the framing around the edges of each stone.  The Al Aksa mosque sits above the Southern Wall.

The Al Aksa Mosque inside the Southern Wall.

Herodian Street - the Robinson Arch rested on the left-side wall.

Framed Herodian stones.

In about 1000 BCE King David conquered Jerusalem and named it as the capitol of his kingdom.  Back in the Davidson Center we viewed a film that described the City of David during this time period.  It spoke of a traveler from a small village coming to Jerusalem on one of the pilgrimage holidays (Yom Kippur, Sukkot, Pesach or Shavuot), having to exchange his money so he would have a half shekel to give to the Temple, buying an animal to sacrifice and then going to the mikveh (ritual bath) - going down the steps of the unclean and coming up the other side as someone who was now ritually pure.  He would then take his offering to the priest for sacrifice before returning to his village.