Coins from 17AD found under Jerusalem's Western Wall hints sacred site NOT built by Herod



Ancient site holy to both Jews AND Muslims

Coins stamped with successor to Pontius Pilate

Construction 'had not even begun' by Herod's death



Two ancient bronze coins, which according to Israel Antiquities Authority archaeologists were struck by the Roman procurator of Judea, Valerius Gratus, in the year 17/18 CE - raising questions over the history of Jerusalem

The history of one of the world's holiest sites - sacred to both Jews and Muslims - is set to be rewritten, following a surprise discovery in a ritual bath beneath the complex.



It proves that the Wall - supposedly built by Herod, the Jewish king who features prominently in the Gospels, was in fact built much later.



Newly found coins underneath Jerusalem’s Western Wall could change the accepted belief about the construction of one of the world’s most sacred sites two millennia ago, Israeli archaeologists said Wednesday.

The man usually credited with building the compound known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary is Herod, a Jewish ruler who died in 4 B.C.



Herod’s monumental compound replaced and expanded a much older Jewish temple complex on the same site.

But archaeologists with the Israel Antiquities Authority now say diggers have found coins underneath the massive foundation stones of the compound’s Western Wall that were stamped by a Roman proconsul 20 years after Herod’s death.



That indicates that Herod did not build the wall - part of which is venerated as Judaism’s holiest prayer site - and that construction was not close to being complete when he died.

'The find changes the way we see the construction, and shows it lasted for longer than we originally thought,' said the dig’s co-director, Eli Shukron.

Coins dated 17/18 CE were discovered beneath the Western Wall of Temple Mount, providing scientific confirmation that the Western Wall and Robinsons Arch construction were not completed in King Herods lifetime

Underground archaeological excavations continue along the 600 metre long drainage channel running from the Siloam Pool in the City of David to the Jerusalem Archaeological Garden near the Western Wall

The four bronze coins were stamped around 17 A.D. by the Roman official Valerius Gratus.



He preceded Pontius Pilate of the New Testament story as Rome’s representative in Jerusalem, according to Ronny Reich of Haifa University, one of the two archaeologists in charge of the dig.

Jesus with Pontius Pilate: Pilate was the successor of the official whose face was printed on the coins

The coins were found inside a ritual bath that predated construction of the renovated Temple Mount complex and which was filled in to support the new walls, Reich said.

They show that construction of the Western Wall had not even begun at the time of Herod’s death. Instead, it was likely completed only generations later by one of his descendants.

The Western Wall is Judaism's holiest site in Jerusalem's Old City: The new find raises questions over its origins

Archaeologists in Jerusalem have uncovered coins inside an ancient Jewish ritual bath by the Wailing Wall in the Old City which challenge the assumption that all of the walls of the Second Jewish Temple were built by King Herod

The coins confirm a contemporary account by Josephus Flavius, a Jewish general who became a Roman historian.



Writing after a Jewish revolt against Rome and the destruction of the Temple by legionnaires in 70 A.D., he recounted that work on the Temple Mount had been completed only by King Agrippa II, Herod’s great-grandson, two decades before the entire compound was destroyed.

Israeli Archaeologist Eli Shukron of the Israel Antiquities Authority looks inside a ritual bath exposed beneath the Western Wall on November 23, 2011

The coins provide concrete proof that the Western Wall - Judaism's holiest site - was built at a later date than previously thought

Scholars have long been familiar with Josephus’ account, but the find is nonetheless important because it offers the 'first clear-cut archaeological evidence that part of the enclosure wall was not built by Herod,' said archaeologist Aren Maeir of Bar-Ilan University, who was not involved in the dig.





THE WESTERN WALL: A HISTORY

The Western Wall – or Wailing Wall - is a remnant of the ancient wall that surrounded the Jewish Temple's courtyard, located in the Old City of Jerusalem at the foot of the western side of the Temple Mount.

It is one of the most sacred sites in Judaism outside of the Temple Mount itself.

According to the Tanakh, Solomon's Temple was built atop the Temple Mount in the 10th century BC and destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BC.

The Second Temple was completed and dedicated in 516 BC.

It is believed that more than half the current wall, including a large below current street level, was constructed around 19 BC by Herod the Great as he launched a massive expansion of the temple.

The remaining layers were added from the 7th century onwards.

It has been a site for Jewish prayer and pilgrimage for centuries, the earliest source mentioning Jewish attachment to the site dating from the 4th century. After the 1948 Arab-Israeli War the wall came under Jordanian control and Jews were barred from the site for 19 years until Israel captured the Old City in 1967.





Josephus also wrote that the end of construction left 18,000 workmen unemployed in Jerusalem. Some historians have linked this to discontent that eventually erupted in the Jewish revolt.

The compound, controlled since 1967 by Israel, now houses the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the golden-capped Muslim shrine known as the Dome of the Rock

The fact that the compound is holy both to Jews and Muslims makes it one of the world’s most sensitive religious sites.

The dig in which the coins were discovered cleared a Roman-era drainage tunnel that begins at the biblical Pool of Siloam, one of the city’s original water sources, and terminates with a climb up a ladder out onto a 2,000-year-old street inside Jerusalem’s Old City.



The tunnel runs by the foundation stones of the compound’s western wall, where the coins were found.

Pope Benedict XVI places a note in the Western Wall, Judaism's holiest prayer site, in Jerusalem's Old City May 12, 2009

'The excavation of the tunnel also yielded a Roman sword that scholars believe are likely debris from a Jewish rebellion'



The drainage tunnel was excavated as part of the dig at the City of David, which is perhaps Israel’s richest archaeological excavation and its most contentious.

The dig is being carried out inside the Palestinian neighborhood of Silwan, and is funded by a group associated with the Israeli settlement movement that opposes any division of the city as part of a future peace deal.