Site 6: The Paved Street and the Fallen Stones of the Western Wall
A street paved with large stone slabs and bordered with curbstones runs along the Western Wall of the Temple Mount. From its location and method of construction it is clear that it was the main street of Jerusalem in the late Second Temple period. Along the street, under it, run two drains (see Tour 1, Site 8). Large fallen Herodian building blocks, heaped up on the paving stones in the north part of the street, are clear evidence of the destruction of the Temple Mount after the Roman occupation
The paving stones of the street are large; some exceed two and even three meters in length. They still bear clear marks of the stonecutters' tools and show no signs of wear, indicating that the street was in use for a relatively brief period. Judging from the state of the street, as well as from written sources (according to Josephus, some Jerusalem streets were paved in the days of Agrippa II), it appears that the street was paved in the mid-first century CE.
A short section of the paved street was first exposed in the archaeological excavations headed by Benjamin Mazar in 1968–1977. Today, after the renewed excavations of 1994–1996, some seventy meters of the street are visible.
The street runs north, beyond the excavated area, for the entire length of the Western Wall of the Temple Mount; it probably continued southward to the Pool of Siloam, for a total length of about one kilometer. Between the street and the Western Wall of the Temple Mount stood a row of vaults built of small stones and roofed by low stone arches. A flight of steps discovered near the corner of the Temple Mount leads to the common roof of the vaults. The vaults served as shops, opening onto the street; the east curbstones of the street doubled as the shops' thresholds. A similar row of shops was built west of the street as well (see Tour 1, Site 9).
Immediately after the occupation of the Temple Mount and the burning of the Temple (on the ninth and tenth days of the month of Av, 70 CE), the Roman soldiers embarked on the deliberate destruction of the Temple, the Royal Stoa and the walls of the Temple Mount. They dismantled the large stones of which the Temple Mount walls and Robinson's Arch were built, and hurled them down to the street below. Hundreds of tons of building stones were thus heaped up on the paved street; the effect is clearly visible even today, in the tremendous collapse and the sunken paving stones in the area just opposite the Robinson's Arch pier.
All the shops flanking the wall itself collapsed as the first stone-blocks were thrown down. A hoard of more than two hundred bronze coins from the time of the Great Revolt of the Jews against the Romans (66–70 CE) was found near the entrance to one of these shops; they had probably been concealed in the shop wall when it was destroyed.
The fallen masonry has been left as found on the paving stones in the north part of the exposed section. Not all of the building stones are rectangular. Some have slightly concave faces, indicating that they were originally used in Robinson's Arch (see Tour 1, Site 9); others include stone steps, presumably from the staircase carried by the arch; stones with a triangular cross section, used in the coping of the Temple Mount walls (such as the cornerstone with the 'Trumpeting Place' inscription, see Tour 1, Site 12); stones with an elongated projection and dressed margins on three faces, of the type used in the upper face of the walls; rounded stones from the stone parapet flanking the staircase on Robinson's Arch; and fragments of the carved doorjambs of the great gate set into the Temple Mount wall just above Robinson's Arch.
A shaft at the edge of the excavated area, in which the foundations of the Western Wall are visible (Site 7), can be reached by turning north and continuing along the street.
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