Why Has The Ancient City Of Jerusalem Been Fought Over For Centuries? | Lost Treasures | Timeline

[Music] [Applause] [Music] Jerusalem C capital city of modern Israel a sacred place for three great world religions for Jews this is the city of the Temple mount the holiest of holy places Muslims believe that the prophet Muhammad ascended into heaven from here to receive instructions as to how his followers should pray Christians know Jerusalem as the site of the crucifixion of Jesus and his resurrection 2,000 years ago this was already an ancient city a holy place long fought over by Waring tribes and Nations the Jerusalem of today still exists on the edge of a religious political and territorial precipice Millennial tensions are threatening to explode with fanatical Jews and Christians attempting to rid the Mount of its Muslim presence Jerusalem is also a city of immense mystery and Intrigue the last century saw increasing interest in the history of the Bible and great efforts were made to uncover the whereabouts of the Lost Ark of the Covenant and conduct archaeological research on the Temple Mount Queen Victoria backed teams of archaeologists and surveyors to explore the Temple Mount but to this day many of the secrets of Jerusalem and the Temple Mount remain tightly guarded but the search for the truth behind the Lost Arc of the Covenant and the Temple Mount continues [Music] [Music] as a center of global Faith Jerusalem has no rival its famous old city is filled with places of worship that draw visitors from across the world Muslims Jews Christians of all denominations for these people Jerusalem has been a place of the utmost importance throughout history an importance that continues today but in ancient times before Christ and Muhammad the story of Jerusalem runs parallel with the history of the Jews the importance of of Jerusalem to Jews is as the site of the temple in Jerusalem where according to all Jewish tradition God is to be worshiped by Jews through sacrifices and Libations and for all Jews at least in theory the most important thing is that the temple should be rebuilt one day even if we have to wait for the Messiah for this to be achieved it all began with Abraham the father of monotheism according to Jewish Legend at a young age Abraham became certain of God's singular nature and immense power under God's command Abraham and his family left their Hometown to seek out and populate a new land where they could worship God Abraham's Journey took him to the Mount of Mariah which was to become the Temple mount in Jerusalem Abraham's successor David fought many battles before successfully establishing Israel as a nation when David's forces conquered a Je sight stronghold in the mountainous lands west of the Dead Sea he decided to establish the Israelite Capital there this was the birth of Jerusalem as the center of the Jewish faith now strategically the area of Israel as we know it today is a military strategist worst conceivable nightmare uh it's a narrow plane with mountains on one side and Sea on the other but Jerusalem does afford some protection and David undoubtedly looked at Jerusalem as being the ideal place in which to establish his kingdom it had water it was mountainous he could protect it and it was in between two very important trade routes the Mediterranean which had the trade routes of course to all the Mediterranean Sea ports and the Norths South trade routes from Saudi Arabia right up into greater Syria the situation was politically quite explosive even after David became king he was following on from Saul who wasn't his father so the dynasty of Saul had been broken now Saul was a member of The Tribe of Benjamin David was a member of the tribe of Judah and there were 12 tribes anyway and they all had their different territories in the land of Israel so establishing the capital in any single place would upset someone or other there was a division between the children of Leah and the children of Rachel so all of these things were difficult and any town would have upset someone but Jerusalem of course was newly conquered from the jebus signes it didn't really belong to any tribe yet and so it seemed like a good kind of middle compromise and like a lot of capitals established today really they don't necessarily make any sense in themselves except they don't upset anybody Too Much from the beginning Jerusalem had the status of a holy city a status it has never lost King David ordered that the most sacred object of his people's religion should be enshrined [Music] there this was an object that continues to inspire a sense of mystery and Fascination it was a small chest made of aaia wood a box purposely built to contain the most sacred laws of God's chosen people carved into stone tablets these laws were the decalog The Ten Commandments revealed to Moses by God several centuries before with the Israelites secure in their new territory David decided to make Jerusalem the home for this holy object the Ark of the [Music] Covenant well the account that is given in the Bible of the Ark of the Covenant and and we have no evidence from anywhere except within the biblical text and a few of the later Jewish writings which refer to it long after it had vanished the account is given of a box of wood of specified Dimensions which traveled with the Israelites and contained relics which were Central to their identity specifically the tablet on which the Ten Commandments were written this description of the Ark is very like the objects which are used by many of the bedan tribes in the near East right down into modern times to carry their symbols of tribal identity and I think it is a reasonable interpretation to see it as originating as that kind of tribal symb as such when the Israelites became a settled people and then became a state with a king this became the national [Music] symbol I'm firmly convinced that the ark was a receptacle for static electricity hence its alleged powers so I think Steven Spielberg might not be too far wrong the ark did have the potential to contain a very high voltage Statics an unusual form of electricity requires a great degree of dryness in the air the ark after all was being carried around it was constructed of gold and wood so you have the perfect elements for or a primitive accumulator and it was very often carried off any contact with the ground because we know from the Bible that it was taken on a cart and this was the point at which in the Bible it tells us that usza reached out to steady the ark as it fell off the cart and as he touched it he fell dead now I think that user who may have had a weak heart who knows got a shock whether he died or not from it we don't know maybe this was embellished the Bible says he died from from this but I think that he got a tremendous shock of static David then told the Levites who were in charge of the Ark at the time that they should have sole custody of it they would would henceforth be the only people allowed to touch it now perhaps the Levi had understood the static electricity properties of their container and insulated themselves leather sandals without any studs so they would have had a job for Life the place where David chose to enshrine the ark was already a significant place for his people it was the summit of Mount Mariah the hill where Abraham was prepared to sacrifice his son Isaac as proof of his faith in God according to the Bible David paid 50 silver shekels for a threshing floor on the mount he then constructed a tabernacle on this floor in preparation to house the holy Ark now dominated by the Islamic Dome of the Rock David's chosen site remained sacred to the Jewish people this is the compound of the Temple Mount or in Arabic the Haram al- Sharif the noble enclosure which stands in the east of Jerusalem's Old City although the Temple Mount compound is no longer a Jewish place of worship all Jews know that this was the location for the Ancient Temple a place that has not existed physically for almost 2,000 years but still the symbolic spiritual center of their faith the building of the temple was achieved by David's son and successor Solomon the Bible explains why the the religious law of Israel dictated that David because of his warlike past was impure and the task therefore fell to Solomon Solomon certainly had the resources to complete the task the book of Chronicles also describes the materials acquired by David for his son's great task David tells him I have prepared for the house of the Lord 100,000 talents of gold and 100,000 talents of silver and of brass and iron without weight for it is in abundance Timber also and stone I have prepared and thou mayest add ther too cut Limestone and beams of Cedar of Lebanon panel inside with cedar and gilded discover the past with exclusive history documentaries and AdFree podcasts presented by world-renowned historians all from history hit watch them on your smart TV or on the go with your mobile device download the app now to explore everything from the wonders of ancient Pompei and the Mystery of the princes in the tower to the life of Anne bin and D-Day sign up via the link in the description the main body of the temple was a large rectangular Hall built from Hune and cut stone according to the Bible its main structure was 60 cubits long 20 cubits wide and 30 cubits High a cubit equaling roughly 21 in to the front stood a great porch dominated by two bronze pillars which stood over 18 cubits High smaller Chambers were situated around the main structure inside the main hall the walls were completely covered with cedar wood while the floor was made of the wood from fur trees the whole building was then lavishly decorated with gold but more significant than its decoration was its holy content inside the main hall in a beautifully carved and gilded inner sanctum or holy of holies stood the Ark of the Covenant the tablets of law given to Moses by God now had a permanent home and the Solomon's Temple stood as a glorious Monument to the Israelites Faith the temple was built on one of the hills of Jerusalem Jerusalem is a very hilly City mountainous I guess you'd say and therefore being built on the top of one of the mountains it would certainly be very visible and of course back then you know we're talking uh a thousand BCE there were not many very big buildings most buildings were fairly small uh so to have a building which is some 20 cubits High you know 10 m high is already pretty large it was also remarkable because it would seem that it didn't have any internal pillars it was about as big as a building could be built without being supported internally so when you went inside you had this huge H without any pillars to stand in your way so it was probably one of the biggest spaces built spaces you could see with an unobstructed view it was also as far as we can gather very highly decorated and very beautiful if it was lined or decorated with gold it would glint in the sun uh Jerusalem very clear Sunny City even in the wintertime so all of that I think would make it a very powerful Focus for people's attention of course it did have any statues or any images or any uh design or artwork if you like it would be quite Stark in that sense but nevertheless I think it probably be very striking uh in in a city of that age uh back then it took Solomon 7 years to complete the temple and his achievement boldly proclaimed Jerusalem's new status by the time of his death in 922 BC Jerusalem was the established capital of the unified Kingdom of Israel with the temple as the focus of religious life however Israel's Unity was shortlived disunity between the Israelite tribes led to a breakup of the unified Kingdom although the greatest danger to Jerusalem the temple and the Jewish people came from the East between 722 and 721 BC the Assyrians invaded and destroyed the Northern Kingdom of Israel despite great resistance 10 tribes were banished from their Kingdom never to return these would become known as The fabled Lost tribes of Israel Judah by contrast retained its independence when Assyrian power began to fade in the 7th Century BC it appeared that Jerusalem's future was finally secure but at the beginning of the 6th Century BC a new danger began to emerge from the East King Nebuchadnezzar legendary ruler of Babylon threatened Jerusalem when Jerusalem first became the capital of Judah the effect was not that dramatic to judge by the archaeology it stayed within the same walls from its first development in the Bronze Age down to the period of the destruction of the Northern Kingdom of Israel following that period however it expanded enormously until it was by far the largest city in the country and larger than any city in the country had been in the past however I think it's safe to say that even within the period before that expansion uh which took place after 700 BC even in that earlier period between a, and 700 BC there would have been substantial Royal buildings within the city and probably fairly substantial private houses of the wealthy nobility from the Israelite Kingdom we can judge this on the basis of the tombs of that earlier period which have been found around the city and these are quite elaborate and um clearly were wealthy tombs of wealthy people um we can also judge it on the basis of The Terraces which were built on the slopes of the city to create more level ground within the defenses um on which to build houses and other um public buildings so I think it would have affected the city quite dramatically it would have made it much more beautiful and Rich than it had ever had been on March the 16th 597 BC Nebuchadnezzar's forces captured Jerusalem many leading Judean citizens were forced into Exile the temple was looted of most of its Treasures but Judah just survived as an entity under a new king installed by the Babylonians the 21-year-old zedekiah the survival of Jewish Jerusalem would be brief in the 9th year of zedekiah's rule he and his people rose up against Nebuchadnezzar it was a disastrous decision the Babylonians responded with a fresh attack after a Siege of 18 months the city fell in 586 BC this time the Babylonians showed no restraint Solomon's Temple was completely destroyed with anything of value looted the holy Ark of the Covenant mysteriously disappeared although there's no evidence that it was seized by the Babylonians its fate remains to this day the stuff of Legend the giant brass pillars of the temple porch were broken down and taken to Babylon exiled to Babylon would also be the fate of the vast majority of skilled workmen trained soldiers and the aristocracy this included King zedekiah who was forced to watch the slaying of his children before having his eyes gouged out despite This Disaster the Jewish faith in their one God survived the temple may have been destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar's forces but it still existed in their Consciousness as the center of their faith by the Rivers of Babylon in Exile the people of Moses and David lamented their holy city in the absence of a temple they met in groups these meeting places would evolve into today's synagogues prayers were said facing Jerusalem a practice that continues to this day in simple terms the Jews maintain the ritual of their faith and the identity of their [Music] Nation the capacity of the Jews to remain committed to their Jewish thinking relates very directly to the rather clever way really that they've handled Jerusalem and the temple the temple was destroyed it was destroyed uh by the Babylonians uh when they took the Judean Jews the Jews of the Southern Kingdom of Judah off into slavery to Babylon rather than just sort of Despair as obviously the 10 lost tribes of the North had done some centuries before instead of sort of saying well that's the end of it you know Jerusalem's destroyed there's no more Temple what shall we do uh they gathered together and said well let's remember Jerusalem let's Echo it in our practices let's still pray to return there maybe we'll be able to and of course in fact just a few decades later they were allowed to return and to rebuild the Temple uh but in that remarkable few decades in Babylon uh they started to construct some quite radical concepts the gathering together and remembering the temple facing towards Jerusalem uh constructing certain things that would remind them of the temple for example example an ark in which they would keep the holy books it's an echo of the Ark of the Covenant and the holy of holies curtain in front of it which reminded them of the curtain in Jerusalem the eternal light that reminded them of the Eternal Light that burnt in the temple these kinds of things established for the very first time what would eventually become the synagogue and we forget that synagogue is completely radical invention never before had ordinary people gathered together for religious purpose Pur es what happened in the past was priests did their thing in temples and people came and watched or they didn't U it wasn't their business so here suddenly religion became democratized Ordinary People played their part now that meant to say that Judaism became portable suddenly although yes there was a great longing to return to Jerusalem and they were able to it was great longing to have the temple and Temple worship they could be Jews wherever they chose the Jews would shouldn't be rewarded for keeping their faith in 539 BC Cyrus the Great conquered Persia and Babylon emancipating the Jews free to return to Jerusalem and led by zerubabel tens of thousands made the journey back to their ruined Capital they returned to their holy city facing the daunting task of rebuilding their Temple inspired by the prophets Hagi and Zechariah The Returned Exiles set about their work when the second temple was reestablished uh that's by the rures from Babylon given permission by the Persians who conquered Babylon they wanted to establish rebuild the Temple in fact that was the reason why they were allowed to return to do that um they didn't have many resources although the Persian uh Empire paid for the reestablishment of the temple but still they didn't have many resources they didn't have many skilled crafts people and they found a certain amount of antipathy amongst the people who had remained behind who had started to feel that you know they knew what they were doing and they didn't want these characters coming back after decades saying well we'll reestablish our own system uh this was really the origin of the conflict which would later become famous between the Samaritans who were the people who had stayed behind and the Jews who returned from Babylon the Samaritans wanted to participate in the rebuilding of the temple the Jews from Babylon said well not really no these this is a Jewish business is uh the Samaritans were deeply offended by this and therefore started to attack the attempts on the part of the Jews to rebuild the Temple and and frequently in fact those attempts were put off nevertheless eventually they built something the result was completed in 516 BC but was a poor restoration of Solomon's original the second temple itself had absolutely none of the Splendor of the first temple indeed it is said in the Bible that those who had known the first temple when they saw the second temple wept for at the comparison between the two it was nowhere near as attractive as the original Temple uh but over the course of the years and the generations it was embellished and embellished and further improved um right up until Roman times certainly by the times of the Greeks we think it was a fairly fancy building whether it was equivalent to the solomonic building we don't know but of course we also know that by Greek times understandings of architecture and aspirations had changed significantly so even if it was identical to the building of Solomon probably they would have thought of it as fairly primitive by then but it was on the same plan it had the same broad structure the porch the main hall and the holy of holies in the center but of course by then the holy of holies didn't contain the Ark of the Covenant that had been taken off it's the stuff of Legend now nobody knows where it is even Spielberg can make a movie the Raiders of the Lost Arc uh that that kind of dream that kind of Legend nobody knows where it's gone so the holy of holies now was a completely empty room which in a way is rather suitable for the Jewish understanding of what you'd find if you tried to find God but it had broadly the same layout Jerusalem now enjoyed centuries of relative prosperity and stab stability however in the 4th Century BC Macedonia became the dominant power in the region Alexander the Great defeated the Persians in 331 BC in Syria and Jerusalem became the capital of the ancient Greek province of Judea throughout his life Alexander was renowned for his tolerance towards conquered peoples the people of Jerusalem were no exception under Greek domination Jerusalem became an important trading center many of its Jewish inhabitants however sought commercial opportunities elsewhere such as at Alexandria in Egypt although these Jews were now physically separated from their capital and compelled to learn the languages and customs of their new homelands all Jews were required to pay an annual tax for the upkeep of the Jerusalem Temple Jerusalem and its Legacy Remain the focus of all their rituals following the death of Alexander in 323 BC Judea became the responsibility of the Egyptian toic Dynasty for the whole of the 3rd Century BC Jerusalem remained largely free of major upheavals but in 198 BC Egypt was defeated by the Syrian forces of King Antiochus III and lost control of Judea it was an event with devastating consequences for Jerusalem and the Jews Greek civilization began to erode the authority of the Jerusalem priesthood when King anias IV installed an altar to Zeus in the temple in 168 BC an armed Rebellion ensued it was led by the dynasty of matathias macabus otherwise known as the maab the macbes reclaimed total Jewish sovereignty of the temple reinstating it as the nation's holiest place an event still joyously celebrated as Hanukah the Festival of Lights the celebration of Hanukah or the beginning of it is described in the the books of maab and it is a tastic ceremony in which all Jews in Judea were required to light candles for for eight days uh in what was evly uh intended to be an imitation of the eight days of the Festival of Tabernacles of sukot and in the the later rinic sources which first refer to these events only in the talwood so in the fourth and fifth centuries see long after these events the celebration that they are said to be commemorating is the discovery of oil in the temple which then lasted for 8 days until more pure and undefiled oil could be found to allow the lights in the temple to be lit again after 450 years Judah was an independent state Once More by public demand the mabes became the ruling Dynasty by the first century BC however a new and decisive Force began to emerge in 63 BC Roman forces under Pompei the great took advantage of the unrest to invade Judah and its capital Jerusalem by 37 BC Judah had become the Roman province of Judea and in that year a new Roman backed King began to rule the land for Jews and Christians this king is regarded to this day as a ruthless murderous Tyrant he is Herod the Great however herod's architectural achievements far outweigh his notoriety he constructed the great Summer Palace of Mada and his famous melum herodian but his greatest and most enduring achievement for posterity was his rebuilding of the Temple of Solomon expanding the platform he constructed Great Walls to enclose the new second temple when we talk about the second temple in a way this should really be Temple 2A because Herod so completely renovated that one suspects that what there was by then was significantly different to the temple that was uh originally built by those people returning from Babylon some 5 600 years before this was a wonderful marble huge construction with grandiose Ambitions and all the best quality of architectural development that Greek and Roman thought had developed it retained the same broad outline with the temple building in the center with the porchway with the main hall with the holy of holies in the center he couldn't possibly have dared to mess about with that and it would appear from the accounts of the rabbis contemporary accounts of the rabbis that Herod tried perhaps quite uncharacteristically really to ensure that he didn't offend against any aspect of Jewish ritual all the way through the building it was desperate to make sure that nobody could criticize him of doing something wrong as he reconstructed the temple so for example all of his reconstruction was complete before he demolished the old bits so he kind of built a shell outside the inner Temple and then dismantled it in order to display the Great temple that he' created so it's quite remarkable efforts he went to to keep the uh Jewish religious authorities happy and indeed the rabbis say that you've never seen a beautiful building until you've seen the Temple of Herod by the time of herod's death in 4 BC the temple was finished but its pre sys were still incomplete Jewish tradition is pretty unenthusiastic about Herod it isn't as unenthusiastic as Christian tradition which is extremely unenthusiastic but there are no Traditions that there was anything wrong with his Temple so so the one good thing about him was that he had made the Temple look that much more impressive than it had ever done previously Herod in his final stage of life was aware of an ancient Messianic prophecy and in a town south of Jerusalem a child had been born Jesus Christ Jesus from an early age frequented a Temple Mount area still under construction for Christians the events at the end of the life of Jesus invest the city of Jerusalem with its eternal significance every year tens of thousands of Believers come here to visit the sites of their savior's last days on Earth according to the gospels Jesus arrived at Jerusalem on the Sunday before Passover going through the Golden Gate of the eastern city wall onto the Temple mount in doing so Jesus was fulfilling Jewish Messianic prophecy over the course of the next few days Jesus famously drove out the Traders and money changers from the courtyard of the temple and engaged in arguments with the Pharisees scribes Sadducees and the chief priests Jewish leadership at that time was divided into two broadly separate groups although there were other groups as well there were the zealots the kind of freedom fighters in the Hills there were the Asen who'd completely cut themselves off and said they'd get on with their own business and they weren't having anything to do with it but the two main groups vying for power in Jerusalem were the Pharisees who we might largely call sort of worker teachers mostly what we today call the rabbis and the Sadducees who tended to be much more orientated around the temple around trying to make it work with the Roman leadership trying to keep the structures of Jerusalem going it would seem as if the the Romans and the Sadducees both recognized that if Messianic movements got out of hand this would threaten the status quo significant according to the Christian tradition Jesus was perceived as a troublemaker by the Jewish authorities the sanedrin his fate was apparently sealed Jesus had to be eliminated the political implications of the crucifixion of Jesus changed depending on whose point of view you're looking from from the Roman point of view Jesus was probably something of a minor nuisance who had to be got out of the way before he became a major problem and in that respect to the Romans this was not an affair of much note at all the gospel gives a very Vivid account of the deliberations of the Jewish high priest Caiaphas and his uh advisors as to what to do about Jesus and for them it was a question of not allowing him to disturb the status quo Visa the Romans hence caias saying it is expedient that one man should die for the people of course in the longer term the crucifixion of Jesus came to have an immense political sign significance on a much grander scale in that his followers founded a new religion and eventually this religion became the official religion of the Roman Empire at that point it changed the status of Jerusalem dramatically and made it the world religious Center which it has remained since for many Christians the most important aspect of a visit to Jerusalem is to follow the supposed route taken by Jesus as he carried the cross through Jerusalem long after the death of Jesus and long after the Jerusalem of his lifetime had been destroyed and rebuilt Christians decided that Jesus had carried the cross along the via dooso the sorrowful Road the so-called 14 Stations of the Cross marked along this route represent incidents that allegedly happened during that Journey at the corner of viar Roo and the street known as haay for instance is station four supposedly the place where Jesus saw his mother Mary 100 met further on is station six this marks the spot where Jesus's face was supposedly wiped by a woman called Veronica although the story of Veronica was only to be found some seven centuries after Christ's death but if the rout taken by Jesus with the cross is dubious there is less doubt about the place where he possibly met his death the Church of the Holy sea site of the last five Stations of the Cross is one of the most revered places in all Christianity despite the church's name it is considered unlikely that Jesus's Seiler or tomb was located here by tradition this is where his crucifixion took place during the fifth decade of the 1 Century the temple precincts were finally completed but completion of the Temple Mount did not bring peace in ad. 44 just over 10 years since the crucifixion Rome had begun to appoint governors of Judea who favored a much firmer approach in their dealing with the Jews in ad 66 a bloody Insurrection broke out across Judea led by the zealots who seized Jerusalem from the Romans the response of the Roman Emperor Nero was to dispatch several Legions under the command of Vespasian the consequences for the holy city were to be severe vespasian's son Titus finally captured the city but in so doing precipitated the destruction of herod's Temple the effect of the destruction of of the temple on Jerusalem was dramatic because the temple had been the main engine of the the economy of the city through pilgrims coming through tourists coming through the regular income that the temple received from Jews all over the world both from within the Roman Empire and from Mesopotamia and all that came to an end because there was no longer any Temple and in fact Jews and the Roman Empire were required to send their offerings instead to Rome to rebuild the Temple of Jupiter which had been burned down by mistake in the year 69 so the economy of the city collapsed completely the establishment of foreign gods and goddesses on the mount led to the next final Rebellion under the leadership of the son of light Simon bar kbar the judeans rose up once more in ad 132 barbar took Jerusalem from the Romans and reinstated monotheistic Jewish worship on the mount the Roman armies retaliated vehemently crushing the revolt and claiming half a million Jewish lies the ruling Emperor hadrien renamed the city Alia capitalina and executed a final expulsion of Jews from Jerusalem exiled and dispersed across the world for 18 centuries the Jewish diaspora ended only in May 1948 with the proclamation of the state of Israel but the story of Jerusalem's hidden past re emerged in the mid 19th century with the Western Christian Revival of interest in the history of the Bible in 1866 the Palestine exploration fund was established with Queen Victoria as its Patron the fund's aim was to increase understanding of Israel's ancient biblical sits Captain Charles Wilson of the royal Engineers began the Exploration with a concise survey leftenant Charles Warren took over from Wilson Warren's job was fraught with difficulty and danger Muslims distrusted foreign archaeological teams in particular their interest in secret passages under the mount the Turkish ottoman authorities who ruled Jerusalem from Constantinople refused further access to the Temple mount for Warren and his team Jerusalem was unwelcoming in other ways as well centuries of rubbish surrounded the Temple Mount and its network of systems and passages were clogged with Jerusalem's sewage Warren had to fight a war of Wills with the Turkish authorities and local land owners to gain access to the Mount as well as a battle against disease liutenant Charles Warren was a wonderful Diplomat and was able to persuade the Islamic author ities to allow him to go into all of the ssts and caverns below the temple platform and to explore them his survey combined with that of Lieutenant Charles Wilson some years earlier provided all the basic data that we have about the archaeology of the Temple Mount and it is on the basis of their work that all l work has been built Warren made some startling discoveries he was determined not only to pinpoint the locations of numerous secret tunnels and passages under the Temple Mount but to uncover the mount's solomonic past this would bring him closer to the possible location of the holy of holies which held the Ark of the Covenant some years earlier Wilson had accurately mapped system 5 an underground system which led down the slope of the mount away from the estimated Center of Solomon's Temple Complex Warren deduced that syst 5 drained the sacrificial remains away from the first temple this meant that the bronze altar of Solomon's inner Courtyard would have stood at the Northeast end of system 5 Warren concluded that Solomon's Temple was located 40 m south of the Sacura with all this detail an accurate picture of the solomonic and herodian Temple complexes began to emerge I like all the other archaeologist cannot dig on the mount so as well as trying to trace the underground systems and channels I thought well the next best thing would be would be to try infrared photography and I took a photograph in 1997 from about 1,000 ft and it showed a channel running from the Sacra to the well head at sist 5 now this only shows up on infrared film now this is very interesting because it proves to my mind Warren's theory that the center of drainage for the temple was here at his system five which is shown on Wilson's map and if this was the case then the holy of holies would have stood approximately here so if there was a secret hiding place leading off from the holy of holies one would have to dig somewhere in this area to find it although Wilson and Warren failed to find the ark their findings contributed greatly to his contemporar understanding of the mount's infrastructure and history the findings of the British royal Engineers of the 19th century strengthen Warren's conclusion that the holy of holies was situated south of the Sacra this means that there once existed a fixed location for the sight of the holy of holies and thereby possibly the ark the last record in history we have of the Ark is a reference in the book of kings and Chronicles in 620 BC King Josiah asked the Levites who were soul custodians of the Ark to bring it out of its hiding place and place it back inside the holy of holies inside the temple that Solomon had built now this is very important because I think that it shows that a hiding place was constructed for the Ark of the Covenant well before the Babylonian destruction of 586 BC in which most of the first temple was destroyed if this is the case it means that that the ark although it disappeared from recorded history had not disappeared from Jerusalem and it's very important for not only historians but also for the Jewish Nation to believe that the ark remains underneath the temple Mountain Jerusalem it has no real significance anywhere else in the world this was the place chosen by David by command of God and therefore today most Jews would like to believe that the ark remains somewhere underneath the mount after numerous failed attempts to find the lost Arc of the Covenant both by archaeologists and treasure Hunters interest in the mount's secrets remain today as high as ever in August 1998 archaeologist Richard Andrews had the rare opportunity to enter the Haram and witness the sights Charles Warren and his team had experienced over a century earlier Andrews and the television crew ventured under the Temple Mount armed with the thought that the ark of the covenant could still be hidden only meters away you go from a place of great noise outside great heat and you enter this shaft which is revetted by wood to keep it to keep the walls from caving in and you then enter another world there's total silence complete darkness we had the sun guns for cam from our cameras so we were able to see quite well and as I progressed further we couldn't go any further with the lamps and I just took a torch and I was able to crawl down one of the tunnels for a distance of about 150 M the TR trouble is that it has never been excavated so I had to then extricate Myself by crawling out backwards but it did lead me to realize that my theory that the ark could be hidden under the mount is plausible this is just one tunnel of many hundreds that are still in existence underneath the Temple Mount of Jerusalem so I could well imagine the ark still standing not many meters away from where we are where it had been left many thousands of years ago by the Levites before the Babylonian destruction Jerusalem is something of an enigma and her mystery is added to by the question of the ark's whereabouts 2,000 years of History has seen great change Within Jerusalem's walls in terms of both religion and archaeology the archaeology of Jerusalem has undergone fantastic change the Great temple of Solomon gave way to the Temple of zerubabel which in turn gave way to the Temple of Herod today the temple we can see hides many lost Secrets including possibly the ark but the only thing which is definite is that the temple itself is a lost treasure of the ancient [Music] world there is a great Desire by Jerusalem archaeologists the Israeli archaeologists to excavate as much as they can Unfortunately they have met up against the religious concerns of the Muslims who still control the Temple Mount and this is the situation which exists today it seems extremely unlikely that the Temple Mount will ever be excavated and for historian this isn't such a tragedy because we have so many literary sources at least for the late second temple period which tells us what the temple was like while it was still standing in Roman times that although it would be nice to have visual proof by excavation It Is by no means essential we still know more about the Jerusalem Temple than about any other Temple in the ancient [Music] [Music] [Music] world

Channel: Timeline - World History Documentaries

Views: 355,057

Keywords: Ancient ruins, Christianity, Diplomacy, Historical disputes, Historical research, Holy City, Holy Land, Instagram, Jerusalem history, Jerusalem tourism, Matt Lewis, Middle Eastern history, Multi-faith city, Ottoman Empire, Palestine, Peace negotiations, Religious history, Roman Empire, Timeline - World History Documentaries, Travel, World Heritage Site

Id: DVR0MrCWtKk

Length: 52min 17sec (3137 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 25 2024