Locations of curved steps in the Court of the Women.
I will be updating some of my old papers whose links can be found in this blog.
I wish to state a very important fact: If ever a trench is cut on the eastern side of the Muslim platform on the temple mount, which shows archaeological evidence for a curving staircase (15 curving steps would be the total number of steps, but even finding evidence of one curving step would be enough) buried below the surface of the platform, this would be confirmation of the location of the temple, since the Talmud describes curved steps leading up to Nikanor’s Gate from the Court of the Women. A curving step was a unique feature found nowhere else in the temple. Since we have dimensions stated in the Talmud, we can reconstruct were many locations were if we know the length of a Cubit.
If these stairs match the location of the calculated location for these stairs in my article on the temple’s location, then this paper has proven where the temple stood on the temple mount because this one calculated piece of the puzzle is specific enough to confirm other parts of the puzzle such as the location of the Azarah etc. My paper uses the same size cubit as Leen Ritmeyer’s cubit measure.
Also L. Ritmeyer points out (Ritmeyer, L. (2006). The Quest, Carta Jerusalem, p. 354) and also is apparent by looking at his drawings of the temple) that his placing of these curved steps in the location shown in his book and various publications, coincides with the present straight Muslim staircase (but at a slightly different angle) that if remains of any curved staircase were to be found under the present Muslim staircase whenever this Muslim staircase might be excavated, then this would be confirmatory evidence of his location (labeled 3). But the inverse also is true: if no curved stairs or staircase is found under the Muslim staircase, then this may mean Nakanor’s Gate was never nearby and my location (labeled 2) could be possible.
According to my model, under, beside, or behind the current Muslim Staircase must be no bedrock, but a filling of non bedrock material would be expected as this would have been ground in the middle of the Court of the Women. My model does allow for bedrock farther to the north around the cisterns pictured and by the location labeled (1) located there which would be ground due north of the Court of the Lepers and not within the Court of the Women. This will be discussed in my updated paper on the temple’s location.
In the figure, the eastern edge of the Muslim Platform is labeled (1), The Dome of the Rock building is labeled (4), the Dome of the Chain is labeled (5), and two cisterns are labeled (6) all shown for reference.
1ofkersondiscoveries 