Jerusalem Pilgrimage Road With The Israeli Ministry Of Foreign Affairs

hi everybody today we are celebrating jerusalem day which marks the reunification of the capital of israel in 1967. but the history of jerusalem and the connection of the jewish people to their homelands began thousands of years ago here in the capital of israel in jerusalem at the city of david where it all started so join us today for a very special tour we're going to give you an inside look of this incredible historic place and you'll be able to ask questions in the comments so yala let's get started hi good morning welcome back home to jerusalem welcome to the city of david hello thank you so we are very lucky to have with us here today jamie an israeli tour guide who's going to give us an inside view of this fascinating place so jamie um why don't you tell us a little bit about where we are standing right now so this is actually a phenomena the story of biblical jerusalem or jerusalem itself goes back 3 800 years ago we're talking the periods of first temple period second temple period thousands of years ago and the phenomena we'll show you today that is off limit close to the public still being revealed still being researched is the ancient 2 000 year old pilgrimage road where all jews used to gather here in jerusalem during the feasts pesach of war tabernacles and ascend up to the temple the ascent it all begins in the year 2000 2004 what happens over here come with me tomorrow right to this area and i'd like you to look at this stone cliff right above our heads i would say three four meters under the peak of this stone cliff round about the height of this beam we see over here there was a modern road an asphalt road that was paved over here say 70 80 years ago underneath that road in 2004 there was a sewage pipe that burst israel antiquities authority had to join the team that dug over here to fix it the tractors arrive to this road they start peeling off the layers of the asphalt and scraping noises started to appear and all of a sudden these steps these man-made steps were found is this something that's normal in this area well in jerusalem and the area of the holy sites the old city and biblical jerusalem yes it is and that's why israelites authority archaeologists had to join the excavation while fixing over here so they weren't surprised when they started revealing man-made carved stones but that hit our curiosity so we ran we got a permit we started revealing the 2 000 year old shiloh pool known in english as the pool of siloam okay who is thailand so in english it's siloam in hebrew meaning the water was sent the water was sent where right here hence two thousand years ago a judean roman tyrant by the name of herod's hordus building the temple mount and renovating the second temple making it the most glorified temple in the east had to build a ritual bath a i'd say a facility that all comers to jerusalem could bathe in that pool a mikvah and in order to that for that to happen he's got to build something huge right so when we started excavating over here what do we find we find 20 or we reveal 20 percent of this 2000 year old shiloh weight does that ring a bell tomorrow of course it does and i'll tell you from where from ancient jewish accounts like the mishnah we learn that in the sukkot the tabernacles the high priest used to walk down from the temple quote to the shiloh pool take a golden vessel collect water and walk back up to the temple and that was the biggest parade and people were in joy ecstatic from that celebration it began here the big question is from the pool how did the how did they ascend where did they ascend from here that is what we want to show you today i'll just mark and tell you that this area this strip you're seeing over here is less than 20 percent of the entire shiloh pool that continues it's huge it's 50 by 50 meters two olympic sized pools right under this garden over here it's still hiding i'd like to show you the challenges that we go through during the excavations in an urban area where people live how do you reveal how do you dig and what do we find and why this is the phenomena the flag project this is authority i am super excited i'm really excited too we'll start walking to this area and you will see something incredible what's incredible the water what filled up the pool so right down over here have a look can you see running water oh my god that is the gihon spring water that begins roughly 400 meters it gushes gihon in hebrew in english means gusher so there's only one spring in jerusalem natural spring it's called gihon and a tunnel diverting the water to here known as hezekiah's tunnel would have filled this pool so we diverted the water now to the kidron valley behind me so this area doesn't flood but in years to come hopefully we will divert the water back into the pool and people will be able to experience and see what it would have looked like thousands of years ago so just understand you dig and you dig and you dig and then you hit water is that how it kind of well so we knew that the water would come out from here somewhere but we couldn't reveal the continuation of hezekiah's tunnel or the aqueduct knowing that we have a road above our heads knowing that we have people living over here it's an urban area but once you can get the permit and once it goes through israel antiquities authorities approval we can start digging over here and revealing it so this water is actually natural water coming from the spring through an aqueduct man-made aqueduct that would have filled this pool continuing where we are over here i'd like to show you something very interesting look how long this strip is we're talking 150 feet more or less it's incredible because in meters it is 50 meters long and again underground penetrating radar scans that we took over here show it continues that way to the west another 50 meters so imagine a huge facility a huge pool everyone bathing over here gathering over here how many people would you estimate so not it's not an estimation it's what the accounts tell us that hundreds of thousands came here every festival to begin the ascent the song of ascent sri lanka this is where they would have sang it and ascend up to jerusalem to the temple why is that so important because the accounts tell us hundreds of thousands two main reasons one the phenomena king herod built the temple mount and the second temple renovation the accounts tell us that millions came here every year to see that and there's a reason why because back in those days under the roman era we know that other nations had multiple temples how many temples did the jews have only one so all the energy money and effort went towards this project and from here they would have walked up to see that phenomena what we have over here is actually a drawing showing us what the pool would have looked like wow so this dark blue strip you're seeing over here is what we've revealed up until today and this is where we stood and we walked this way right over to here so in the drawing you can actually see a piazza or a plaza over here right when people would have come out the pool and start walking up how do we know that this was that long as we draw it over here tomorrow look at this it's right over there oh my god so all these huge flag stones two thousand year old flagstones we're standing on now were preserved for thousands of years and it's been revealed wow to the public so i have a question if you're talking about like millions of people coming here how did the i guess municipalities in those days or whatever you would call them safely facilitate their passage to the school so that's a challenge and obviously you would have had guards and the accounts actually tell us that even though hundreds of thousands came here every celebration every feast every hug every human being would always find a place to stay in and it was never tight because we're talking about the center of the jewish world we're talking about the capital of the jewish world you had many hotels over here many houses and people would have opened their houses to the multitudes feeding them helping them yeah you might have paid a few shekels here and there but the accounts tell us that there was it was very comfortable to the people because there was a lot of hospitality like an airbnb a cheap airbnb well yes sort of you bet you bet because the cause was the temple and if it's holy you've got to be holy while welcoming people to jerusalem and being a part of that project i'd like to tell you one of the most incredible stories that took place over here while excavating can you see the grill behind you right over here that is a drainage system why is that amazing because while excavating here 2004 archaeologist professor ronnie reich and ali shukran from israel antiquities authority found this round man manhole can you see these holes over here yeah this is what drained rain water into a drainage system this is like a sewer yes exactly it has nothing to do with the aqueduct with the clean water that would have filled the pool they realize there's a drainage system round about this area they find this drainage system they jump in and it takes the north they start crawling on their bellies 600 meters up north and they exit at the western wall and while they were crawling on their bellies they saw from bottom to top in the drainage system a few other manholes that indicated to them that there's a road a proper promenade if you'd like a champs-elysees or a fifth avenue of jerusalem connecting the pool to the temple the ascent why is that important because that's when we realized oh my word we have a road above our heads above the drainage system let's reveal it let's find it but come with me so this is the original road that you guys found i know why you're surprised because they look completely new hardly worn out there's a reason and i'm going to touch that reason which is incredible and you'll be amazed when you see what i have to show you i'll just tell you very quickly that the fact that many houses were built here in the last 100 years and unlike america for instance we don't have eminent domain when a governor or a city a state can tell the inhabitants please move out of your house we have all sorts of national interests over here we don't have that so we can't reveal the road the 2000 year old avenue or pilgrimage road because we have modern houses covering it so what do we do tomorrow necessity is mother of innovation israel known as the high-tech nation we have a challenge we have to be creative so the city of david along with israel antibodies authority what did they do they found or they invented a new patent and that patent is how to dig under houses and under the modern road without anything collapsing no one wanted to do it so nobody's being vacated from their homes nobody has to leave no way and that is something that we the city of david won a prize worldwide prize first place this is like the oscar of the tunneling and we the city of david won that reward roughly eight but months ago in norway exciting so what did we do come with me to your right over here you'll actually see an original two thousand year old first shop coming out of the pool and this is the beginning of the fifth avenue location location location prada gucci armani if you'd like but what you're seeing over here the fruit the vegetables the souvenirs the sacrifices the money changes everything is based on what on the archaeological excavation the findings the artifacts and we're able more or less to understand what people saw what people bought what people sold worldwide coming over here so in this case what are some of the artifacts you found to point to the fact that it was a story so many weights and we know that you had the agronomus the agronomus was the official from the municipality his role was to make sure that the weights are right and no monkey business is going on over here we find a lot of organic material and peels that were preserved hence we can actually know what people sold over here grain fruit vegetables obviously lenin would not have survived this area or 2 000 years but we do know that people did buy souvenirs coming here worldwide wanting to bring back to their family wherever they came from souvenirs from jerusalem like any other market around the world you bet you had restaurants over here and we know that because we find and this is incredible we find thousands of bones animal bones can you guess what you know what can you guess what bones we what animal bones we don't find pig yes okay that i understood so pork was not eaten in jerusalem and kosher unclean and that's why we don't find that those kind of bones but we do find other animals fish bones deer uh lamb etc while we walk on these 2 000 year old flagstones tamar i want you to note something can you see there are flagstones that are missing yes and we have it one two three and as we go up we can see roughly four or five different areas where the huge 2000 year old flagstones covering the drainage system are actually missing and while crawling through over here in 2004 all the way up 1800 feet to the western wall we found pieces of these flagstones inside smashed pottery and actually cooking pots that were in one piece hundreds of coins a sword a roman sword with its leather cover oh i thought you bet you bet and professor ronnie reich knew immediately what that sword is all about i'll tell you that a little bit later but this unfortunately hides within it a very dramatic and sad story of the end of jerusalem in the year 70 ce 1952 years ago the destruction of the second temple and who's counting tomorrow we're counting um i'll tell you that a little bit later when we talk about the dramatic end of this road the 2000 year old flagstones and promenade and that will also help us understand why these stones are in such good shape so follow me behind the scenes to where it's off limit and hopefully in a few years from now it'll be open to the millions to the multitudes coming to jerusalem walking the footsteps of our ancestors so people haven't been here yet not yet wow so don't look at the code it's a statement don't look at the card hold on it's really a state secret we're going follow me behind the scenes yeah so as we walk over here remember we have the modern road above our heads and some houses and look at these enormous steel bars we have over our heads quickly the technique itself in order to prevent it preventing a slight movement of one micron i'll show you right above your head over here you can see what the patent is we drill in pipes that will be the supporters the foundations of what we have above our heads and then gradually dig very slowly how slowly i'm talking dental equipment oh wow a little shovel very slowly because you want to prevent any collapse over here you can understand this the outcome of a collapse over here so things are done very very delicately very slowly to prevent any collapse so so how long did it take to dig all of this it still does ever since 2004 gradually um and because it's so slowly it takes a long time to reveal it's a challenge that we are able to face only by working very carefully so we'll continue up above over here follow me what's your step when i told you that this is the flag project of israel antiquities authority we have to understand that this is a phenomena which is also actually a game changer in jerusalem because up until today you can see that during all the festivals all the feasts hundreds of thousands come here to jerusalem to commemorate those feasts and to come to you shalom it's interesting because when we say pilgrimage in english what does it mean in hebrew the original word comes from hebrew aliyah the so what is the alia lagil the ascent to the feast to the festival to the temple and you can actually see that we are literally walking up we are ascending topographically you're walking uphill and that is the phenomena but i'd like to also state another amazing idea what does hag mean it's the circle what do people do in the they walked up they ascended up to the temple and they used to circle the temple seven times seven times who else circled a city three thousand two hundred years ago seven times uh josh yes yes okay and that is amazing that is amazing because joshua what did he want to do he wanted to tear down the walls by circling the walls seven times the walls fell down that's why in ashkenazi weddings you will always see the bride up until today circling the groom several to seven times why is that because they want to break the walls the barriers between them and become one wow so that is truly amazing but that also reminds us something else one of the five pillars of islam is what hajj in mecca and they go to mecca and they circle the kaaba the rock how many times seven times so that's pretty interesting and here you can actually see the magnitude of the 2000 year old road so if we stand tomorrow over here we are roughly say 30 meters 90 feet from the pool look at this now so many times archaeologists or historians stood over here along with israel antiquities authority archaeologists and asked is this 2 000 years old look at them no it's like brand new these are the original it is that's a phenomenon why and how was it preserved i promised you i'll get there okay but walking along this area we will actually be able to see the incredible magnitude of the road itself tomorrow welcome oh my gosh wow so you're walking here and you have to imagine 2 000 years ago that above your head what do you see i don't know the sky because everything is open open great so throughout the years after the destruction of jerusalem a reminder rome takes over the 10th roman legion settles here as a roman garrison in jerusalem a new period of time covering the destruction then 250 years later constant time the grade the byzantines take after 200 years the muslims take over and then the crusaders take over after that yes and that's what we have above our heads so if this is the fifth avenue of jerusalem or you know what let's go to europe now the champs-elysees or the ramblas in barcelona to your left and to your right what do you see the shops continue okay and that is incredible so that's what you have to see now underground penetrate penetrating radar scans that we took to the west and to the east show us that in different areas it goes from 50 meters it becomes narrow and it was built according to the topography of jerusalem because we are in what we know as the central valley roads were always built in valleys ask me why great question because no one would build a house in the heart of the valley we have 800 millimeters of rain water annually and all the water would concentrate over here and that's why the road or this area the central valley was clear from houses and it became a default route to build a promenade that's the rational behind it covering over here with this plastic cover is actually something very interesting this is a 2 000 year old coin you can't sure and that little coin tells us a huge story of jerusalem and how it ended on that coin we have minted the words shanna steim year two on one side and on the other side to the freedom of zion and guess what language it's minted hebrew hebrew ancient hebrew and that is a rebel coin from the second year of the great revolt which is 67 ce the destruction of jerusalem by the roman empire three years later masada the last jewish stronghold falls and the rest is history so that little coin will get back to it in just a bit and it has to do a lot with the drainage system that we saw the flagships missing above it and that's the story of the destruction i want to talk about the drama the beauty the joy in jerusalem because we read these events in the accounts it's very difficult sitting at home school shul and reading those words and actually being able to imagine what happened over here so the accounts tell us that people were ecstatic why and how hey people used to gather in the pool of shiloh gather together unite walk along with the temple and celebrate the feasts so you have the levi's the levy in playing their instruments singing their drums their trumpets people are wow like a huge party woodstock if you'd like le have okay but yes that that that's what you would have had over here and i can imagine that i can actually walk on these 2000 year old flagstones saying to myself this is insane but unfortunately every good story also comes to an end and the end of jerusalem was a bad end and a very hard end very quickly in a nutshell what happened over here so we have one voice and one voice only to tell us the story yes oh well done my history degree paid off you better uh who josephus flavius josephus or in hebrew yourself ben matityahu who writes his monumental book the jewish wars against the romans he writes about the events and he's the only source telling us the what the when the who the how incredible go back and read it you love it very quickly he tells us that the great revolt that began the jewish revolt against the romans that began in the year 66 ce ended in jerusalem after four years seventy and after six months of siege when people here in jerusalem were starving to death surrounded by three roman legions the fifth the tenth the fifteenth and sixty thousand soldiers at the peak of their weakness on the hebrew day of yudhaitamus they tear down the walls a few weeks later the ninth day of they burn the temple and then he writes in his eighth book or chapter eight that the last jewish rebels ran from the upper city and if you go out from here you'll see topographically and archaeology will prove that that the city expanded up to the hills of mount zion he writes that the last jewish soldiers ran to the lower city city of david and seeked refuge in the drainage systems so right here in the drainage system underneath yes ma'am and when the romans heard that they were hiding over there quote they broke the tiles above their heads two thousand soldiers corpses were taken out of these drainage systems uh one thousand suffocated the other one thousand found their death uh in different ways and then he writes and i want to summarize what he says and they did not leave a stone upon a stone and they burned the entire lower city until the shiloh pool this pool of salon why is that amazing because many people throughout history used to think that he had this tendency to exaggerate so in the city of david when you find first temple period areas which we do you walk along with a shovel in your left hand a bible in your right hand and it correlates but 500 years later second temple period which are after the days of the bible the hebrew bible you walk with a shovel in your left hand josephus in your right hand and guess what the thought or the theory that josephus had this tendency to exaggerate is probably not true why because we find evidence of what he writes look at the shops over here so this is the eastern edge of the pilgrimage road and you can see this flagstone over here which is actually the pavement the road over here is roughly 25 meters 70 feet wide what would you have here 2 000 years ago the shop and the shop owner where would he and his family live probably close by and above so imagine just like today you walk in central arteries worldwide you can actually see housing above the shops what do we find over here the foundations of the second story where the shop owners lived were actually wooden beams and the furniture was made out of what would so if jeff you bet you bet right you are ever since 2013 when we began this project the pilgrimage road after the pool these flagstone flagstones we see over here brand new were revealed because of what because the wooden beams burned everything collapsed in to the shops and outside on the road and that is what covered all of that yes and that is what preserved it why am i telling you this come with me over here you can actually see where the diggers the archaeologists finished their work yesterday and they'll continue in about an hour from now or maybe tomorrow they might have taken the day off today jerusalem day right this is important because this is how we find the road the whole project can you see these man-made square stones look how they're 90 degrees over here and right where we're standing you can actually still see the chisel marks meaning this is man-made and you see it here and you see it here and you see it here and it's everywhere mixed with the rubble with the dirt you see over here these stones fell yes so imagine these stones above your heads the house above the shop wooden beams are burnt everything collapses and that is how we find the entire pilgrimage road every day day by day meter by meter sent to me to buy centimeter holding delicate dental equipment digging over here and you know what the phenomena is he didn't exaggerate josephus we know that because when we sift through the dirt found over here we found thousands of pieces of pottery that was smashed into small pieces like an earthquake well yes but when earthquake you know if it's an earthquake only if all the stones are fallen to the same direction like pillars we see it in beijing this was not an earthquake it probably felt like an earthquake for the people for sure it was a war and it was a world war because that marked the end and when we look live in front of your face very delicately very slowly we find we find dramatic findings artifacts do you see this tomorrow this is ash no this is 2 000 to be accurate 1952 year old ash this is carbon dated coin dated and that takes us back to the coin because that coin you saw over there is a rebel coin it says on its shenash time shana bet year two to the rebellion to the great revolt and the coins we find buried under the rubble on the flagstones it's like time paused because this is the end and the drama over here is our story this ash i just put on my hand over here taken out from the original rubble destruction of jerusalem 70 ce almost 2 000 years ago is a reminder of what happened over here and why is that so excited because 2000 years ago from this point over here where it all ended we the jewish people were thrown out of judea and we were scattered in all corners of the world africa asia europe later on america for 2000 years we never forgot jerusalem direction of prayer jerusalem we finished the haggadah on pesach next year in jerusalem we get married we sanctify our marriage what do we do we break we smash the glass commemorating what this the destruction of jerusalem and what do we say forget my right hand tomorrow we never forgot jerusalem and that's why jerusalem never forgot us and this is a silent echo of what happened over here which is so deeply embedded in our dna in our identity for us jerusalem is not a narrative it's not a story it is essence of our being essence of our coming home and standing here commemorating 55 years reuniting jerusalem the jerusalem day for me as a human being as a jew as an israeli there's nothing more exciting for me to be with you today and to show this to the world welcome back to yerushalayim the city of david where it all began unfortunately where it all ended but where it continues yes wow thank you so much jamie that was incredible and on behalf of all of us happy jerusalem day from the past present and future of the jewish people you

Channel: City of David

Views: 200,807

Keywords: city of david, jerusalem, pilgrimage Road, archaeology, israel, bible, Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Id: NULJCEC8IB4

Length: 34min 14sec (2054 seconds)

Published: Sun May 29 2022