This last summer when I visited Jerusalem, I explored for the first time the Western Wall Tunnel. Although most people are familiar with the portion of the wall where Jews presently pray, the largest portion of the wall is now underground. I took a tour of the tunnel and discovered several surprises: 1) there is a huge monolith stone, sometimes called the Western Stone, which is nearly twice the height of a person and wider than a two car garage; it is over 500 tons and is the largest stone discovered in the Temple Mount. The upper section has what looks like a section broken off, which might have been a result of stones being thrown off of the Temple Mount when the Romans destroyed the area in 70 CE; 2) some of the stones in plain view have been cut and dressed in a way that they fit together nearly perfectly; 3) there are sections of the wall where women are allowed to pray; 4) there is a quarry nearby where stones were honed out for the Temple Mount and it looks as though the stones where being carved out even until the area was destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE; and 5) there are sections of the tunnel that were simply amazing to walk through and there were areas that were confined.
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| The Monolith or Western Stone |
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| Closeup: the stones above the broken section of the Monolith were added later by the Muslims around 1400 CE. |
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| Closeup of precision joints of the stones |
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| Women praying at the Western Wall near the Monolith |
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| Women praying at another section of the Western Wall |
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| A quarry near the Western Wall |
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| A majestic section of the tunnel of the Western Wall |
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| Another section of the Western Wall Tunnel |
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