Image Details

Entering the Temple. The Temple Mount could be approached via two entrances from the south. The Double Gate and the Triple Gate led worshipers and priests into sloping underground passageways that opened onto the Temple courtyard. This rare photograph of the area inside the Double Gate was taken in 1902. Today the area is partially blocked by cement pillars built to prop up the al-Aqsa Mosque, which lies above it.

Underground passageways leading to a temple’s central area are yet another feature typical of classical architecture that Herod’s builders incorporated in the Temple Mount. See photograph of the Temple of Apollo in Ionia.