The Disputed North Wall: Can We Settle the Argument by Excavation?

In the first installment of this article, I proposed a location for the north wall of the Herodian Temple Mount platform—one that differs from the north wall of today’s Muslim platform, al-Haram al-Sharif. My identification raises several questions: First, other than a single ashlar (hewn stone) that remains in the north end of the Temple Mount’s western wall and that has marginal drafting on its northern as well as its western face, there are no certain visible traces of this wall. (The Herodian ashlars visible at the northeastern corner of the Haram appear to be in secondary use because they are mixed with stones from other periods, as noted in the first installment of this article.) Second, the wall that I propose for the Herodian north wall would cut right through the center of the Birkat Isra’il reservoir, which abuts al-Haram al-Sharif at its northeastern corner.