The Second Temple and a Byzantine House

This is a picture of our group right before we walked around the grounds of the Second Temple (Herod's Temple, built in the first century B.C.).


I'm standing in front of the walls of the Temple Mount, which once contained Herod's Temple (but now contains the Dome of the Rock). The stones are clearly Herodian (from Herod's age) because of their "margin," i.e. the border that you can see around the stones (look just above my backpack at the approx. 3-inch strip surrounding each stone). You also see behind me a bunch of rocks on the ground. These are left from when the Romans (under Titus) conquered Jerusalem in 70 AD and destroyed the temple - fallen from almost 2,000 years ago.


Here we're all crowded into a Byzantine house (post-fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD). Approximately 20 people would live in this place!