Western Hill to Temple

View looking northeast with the western hill on the left (west) and the Temple Mount in the upper portion of the image (east).

Note the theater and the double conical domes of the Hasmonean Palace on the Western Hill.

Note especially the bridge—located on the center portion of the image—that connects the western hill to the Temple Mount.  Remnants of one of the arches (Wilson’s Arch) is still in existence.  The red-roofed, basilica building with a clerestory may have been the Chamber of Hewn Stones, one of the places where the Sanhedrin met (see below)

The original hall was presumably part of a large Herodian public building that some scholars have identified with the Chamber of Hewn Stones (the Xystos) or with the Council Building, both referred to by Josephus as being in this area (War V, 144).

From The New Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations in the Holy Land vol. 2, p. 742.