A small area set aside for the prayers and ceremonies of the Jews is better known as the Western Walls. Obviously, it was completed many times. The blocks of the upper tier cover some kind of huge hole made in the course of long-term destruction. The blocks of the lower visible tier docked perfectly - the slots are zero, in contrast to the upper tier and from the damaged places where the notes are inserted.
The most interesting is the southern part of the western wall (now the zone of the Archaeological Park), which was previously underground for a long time.
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The blocks in the south-western corner of the wall reach several hundred tons, but at the same time they are laid without mortar and any significant gaps between the blocks.
On the upper tiers, there are several troughs for water drainage, which were cut into the masonry in later times.
In the very corner of the Archaeological Park, near the wall, archaeologists made a pit, in which it can be seen that the masonry goes much lower than the level of the ancient pavement, which has been excavated and is believed to belong to the Herodian period. The depth of the pit is such that they even put an elevator nearby to go down. At the same time, the masonry of the extension is fundamentally different from the megalithic masonry of the wall throughout the depth of the pit.
Near the western wall there are collapses of blocks that were clearly part of the masonry of an ancient structure. It is believed that these are the ruins of an arch, small remains are still visible emerging from the wall. However, it is absolutely possible that at least some of these blocks were part of the wall itself.
Unfortunately, we did not find any traces of machine processing on these blocks. And those traces that are visible could well have been left by hand tools.
The structures excavated slightly to the west of the Temple wall are fundamentally different from the megalithic masonry of the wall itself in all their parameters.
Of all these buildings, the structure stands out sharply, somewhat reminiscent of the Egyptian Osirion in Abydos. This structure is considered to be the base of the above-mentioned arch, the second edge of which went inside the Temple wall. However, this structure stands at the level of the pavement, which is significantly higher than the masonry of the wall, discovered by archaeologists in a pit (see above). This suggests that the blocks used in this design are reused. Moreover, the quality of its masonry drops sharply with distance from the Temple wall.
Another option: the structure dates back to the same time as the Temple Wall, but was erected on the other edge of the moat separating the Temple Mount from the neighboring site, while the western edge of the moat was significantly higher than the base of the Temple Wall. Later on, part of this structure was destroyed and completed using simpler technologies (hence the drop in level with distance from the wall).
On one of the large blocks there are traces of processing, which allow the use of a mechanical tool (for example, such as a bush hammer), similar to those that caught our attention in Palmyra (Syria). The tracks have a pronounced deepening towards the center along a certain radius, which is not typical for manual processing. Although opinions on these tracks in our group were divided …