LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Temple Mount: Western Wall
built 615 days ago
The Temple Mount is a large flat-topped construction built over a natural hill; the side walls of the Mount are hidden behind residential buildings on the northern side and northern portion of the western side. The southern portion of the western side is the Western Wall, only half visible above ground. On the southern and eastern sides the walls are visible almost to their full height. A northern portion of the Western Wall may be seen from within the Western Wall Tunnels, which were controversially excavated underneath the buildings in that location in the 20th century. The platform itself is separated from the rest of the Old City by the Tyropoeon Valley, though this once deep valley is now largely hidden beneath later deposits, and is imperceptible in places. The platform can be reached via Bridge Street — a street in the Arab quarter at the level of the platform, actually sitting on a monumental bridge; the bridge is no longer externally visible due to the change in ground level, but it may be seen (from beneath) via the Western Wall Tunnels.
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The present flat "Temple Mount" is not a flattened hill, but a built-up hill. The walls surrounding the hill were used as retaining walls in order to fill in the lower sides of the hill and make a flat area on top. This method of building a flat platform was a common practice then and is still used today. Josephus mentions this method in Book 15, Chapter 11, Paragraph 3 of his Antiquities of the Jews. The high walls ... made it difficult for invaders to get inside the walled area. A survey and topographical drawing of the hill was done by Warren in the late 19 century (The Survey of Western Palestine, by Col. Sir Charles Warren, K.C.M.G., R.E., and Capt. Claude Reigner Conder, R.E., 1884).
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A month-old Islamic dig on Jerusalem's Temple Mount to replace faulty electrical cables has damaged an ancient wall that is likely a remnant of the Second Temple, Israeli archaeologists said Thursday. The work, which is being carried out with the approval of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and the state-run Antiquities Authority, has been repeatedly condemned by independent Israeli archaeologists, who are calling for its immediate halt.
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A series of dark arch-shaped marks on the southern wall of the Temple Mount attest to a row of vaults that extended eastward; it terminated 10 m before the southeast corner of the Temple Mount. Four squares in this spot were excavated in order to learn the nature of the last vaults in the series. The remains of the two eastern vaults were exposed here.
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The Temple Mount was held by the Muslim Turks for several hundred years. Nothing was done to repair the walls or the roof tiles on the Dome of the Rock and the El-Aksa Mosque. There are no records of high Muslim clerics or kings paying homage to Jerusalem by visiting El-Aksa or the Dome of the Rock nor is there evidence of caretakers or clerics to greet or preach to Muslims coming to worship during those hundreds of years. Granted the Temple Mount was a magnet for conquerors seeking its power but, once in hand did not give up her secrets. Only the Jews seemed to want to stay and bask in its spiritual glow.
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Over the period 1970–1988, the Israeli authorities excavated a tunnel passing immediately to the west of the Temple Mount, northwards from the Western Wall, that became known as the Western Wall Tunnel. They sometimes used mechanical excavators under the supervision of archeologists. Palestinians claim that both of these have caused cracks and structural weakening of the buildings in the Muslim Quarter of the city above. Israelis confirmed this danger:
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Western Wall