Holy religious sites on Temple Mount, Jerusalem, Israel

*WS 84: Holy religious sites on Temple Mount, Jerusalem, Israel*

Mt Moriah in Old Jerusalem is the most sacred religious site to the Jews. King Solomon built the First Temple here in the 900s BC. King Herod the Great built the Second Temple here, around the time when Jesus was living. A huge rectangular platform, about 520 m by 300 m, was built up with retaining walls to provide the level open space needed for the temple and the courtyard. This is now called the Temple Mount. 

The Second Temple was destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD and no new Jewish temple was built after that. When the Muslims took over Jerusalem from the 600s, several Islamic shrines were built on top of the mount. The Israelis, with no temple to pray, started to pray facing the middle section of the western retaining wall, now called the Wailing Wall. Since the Israelis took control of Jerusalem in 1967, the situation remains status quo. We were on a pilgrimage group tour here in 2008.

The 1st photo shows part of the Temple Mount viewed from the south-western end. The 2nd photo shows a square next to the Wailing Wall. The Jews pray by facing the Wailing Wall, sometimes wailing, as in the 3rd photo. The original height of the wall is about 32 m, now the exposed part around 19 m, built with limestone blocks weighing around 2 to 7 tonnes. 

The next 5 photos show the top of the Mount. The 4th and 5th give a general view with broken columns from the Byzantine era. The 6th shows one of the 8 stairways to the Mount culminating with slender arches.

The 7th shows part of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, built in 705 and considered the 3rd holiest mosque in Islam. Muslim belief holds that Prophet Mohammad ascended to Heaven from this spot in 621. The last photo shows the beautiful and famous Dome of the Rock, a Muslim shrine originally built in 692 and the current version rebuilt in 1072.