Western Wall
Shown within Old Jerusalem
Alternate name	Wailing Wall
Location	Jerusalem
Coordinates	31°46′36″N 35°14′03″E / 31.776667°N 35.234167°E
Height	exposed: 62 feet (19 m)
History
Builder	Herod the Great
Material	Limestone
Founded	19 BCE – mid 1st century CE
Site notes

The Western Wall, Wailing Wall or Kotel (Hebrew:   , translit.: HaKotel HaMa’aravi; Ashkenazic pronunciation:Kosel; Arabic: حائط البراق‎, translit.: Ḥā’iṭ Al-Burāq, translat.: The Buraq Wall) is located in the Old City of Jerusalem at the foot of the western side of the Temple Mount. It is a remnant of the ancient wall that surrounded the Jewish Temple‘s courtyard, and is arguably the most sacred site recognized by the Jewish faith outside of the Temple Mount itself. Just over half the wall, including its 17 courses located below street level, dates from the end of the Second Temple period, commonly believed to have been constructed around 19 BCE by Herod the Great, but recent excavations indicate that the works were not finished during Herod’s lifetime. The remaining layers were added from the 7th century onwards. The Western Wall refers not only to the exposed section facing a large plaza in the Jewish Quarter, but also to the sections concealed behind structures running along the whole length of the Temple Mount, such as the Little Western Wall–a 25 ft (8 m) section in the Muslim Quarter.

It has been a site for Jewish prayer and pilgrimage for centuries; the earliest source mentioning Jewish attachment to

the site dates back to the 4th century. From the mid-19th century onwards, attempts to purchase rights to the wall and its immediate area were made by various Jews, but none was successful. With the rise of the Zionist movementin the early 20th century, the wall became a source of friction between the Jewish community and the Muslim religious leadership, who were worried that the wall was being used to further Jewish nationalistic claims to the Temple Mount and Jerusalem. Outbreaks of violence at the foot of the wall became commonplace and an international commission was convened in 1930 to determine the rights and claims of Muslims and Jews in connection with the wall. 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 and three days later bulldozed the adjacent 770 year old Moroccan Quarter.^[1]

Etymology

Early Jewish texts referred to a “western wall of the Temple”,^[3] 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 term Western Wall as referring to the wall visible today was by the 11th-century Ahimaaz ben Paltiel. The name “Wailing Wall”, and descriptions such as “wailing place” appeared regularly in English literature during the 19th century.^[4][5][6] The name Mur des Lamentations was used in French and Klagemauer in German. This term itself was a translation of the Arabic el-Mabka, or “Place of Weeping,” the traditional Arabic term for the wall.^[7] This description stemmed from the Jewish practice of coming to the site to mourn and bemoan the destruction of theTemple. 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 the tradition that the wall was the place where Muhammad tethered his miraculous winged steed, Buraq.

Location and dimensions

The Western Wall commonly refers to a 187 foot (57 m) exposed section of ancient wall situated 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 Wall stretches for 1,600 feet (488 m), most of which is hidden behind residential structures built along its length. Other revealed sections include the southern part of the Wall which measures approximately 80 metres (262 ft) and another much shorter section known as the Little Western Wall which 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 Temples stood 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 105 feet (32 m), with the exposed section standing approximately 62 feet (19 m) high. The Wall consists of 45 stone courses, 28 of them above ground and 17 underground.^[8] The first seven visible layers are from the Herodian period. This section of wall is built from enormous meleke limestone stones, possibly quarried at either Zedekiah’s Cave^[9] situated under the Muslim Quarter of the Old City or at Ramat Shlomo^[10] 4 kilometres (2.5 mi) northwest of the Old City. Most of them weigh between 2 and 8 short tons (1.8 and 7.3 t) each, but others weigh even more, with one extraordinary stone located in the northern section of Wilson’s Arch measuring 13 metres (43 ft) and weighing approximately 570 short tons (520 t). Each of these stones is surrounded by fine-chiseled borders. The margins themselves measure between 5 and 20 centimetres (2 and 8 in) wide, with their depth measuring 1.5 centimetres (0.59 in). In the Herodian period, the upper 10 metres (33 ft) of wall were 1 metre (39 in) thick and served as the 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 7th century when the Byzantines reconquered Jerusalem from the Persians and their Jewish allies in 628.^[11]

The next four courses, consisting of smaller plainly dressed stones, date from the Umayyad period (Muslim, 8th century).^[12] Above that are 16–17 courses of small stones from theMamluk period (Muslim, 13–16th century) and later.^[12]

History

Construction 19 BCE

According to the Tanakh, Solomon’s Temple was built atop the Temple Mount in the 10th century BCE and destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BCE, and the Second Temple completed and dedicated in 516 BCE. Around 19 BCE Herod the Great began a massive expansion project on the Temple Mount. In addition to renovating and enlarging the Temple, he artificially expanded the platform on which it stood, resulting in an enlarged enclosure. Today’s Western Wall formed part of the retaining perimeter wall of this platform. In 2011, Israeli archaeologists announced the discovery of Roman coins minted well after Herod’s death found under the massive Meleke foundation stones in the southern section of the wall inside a ritual bath which predates the construction of the renovated Temple Mount complex and was filled in to support the new walls.^[13]This indicates that Herod did not build the entire wall and that construction was not close to being complete when he died. The finds confirms the description by historian Josephus Flavius, which states that constructions were finished only during the reign of King Agrippa II, Herod’s great-grandson.^[14] Herod’s Temple was destroyed by the Roman Empire, along with the rest of Jerusalem, in 70 CE, during the First Jewish-Roman War.