el-Aqsa Entrance 2

View looking southwest at the main entrance to the “el–Aqsa” Mosque on the Haram esh–Sharif in Jerusalem.

Just to the lower left of the main entrance is a green guard shack.  In front of it note the two large stone posts.  Between the posts is a staircase (not visible) that leads down to underground area.  Here there is a long underground sloping passage that leads us from the Double Gate to this level of the platform.  This sloping passageway was used by those visiting the Herodian  (Second/New Testament) Temple that once stood where the Dome of the Rock is now located.

For a view of a sloping passageway in a temple, compare the one found at the Temple of Apollo at Didyma  (in Turkey).

In the foreground is the ablution fountain—the “el–Qas.”

For a brief description of the mosque Click Here.

This image courtesy of Reinhold Buxbaum.