Christian travelers visit Jerusalem to retrace Jesus’ final footsteps along the Via Dolorosa, Muslims to revere the Dome of the Rock, and Jewish people to insert written prayers into the cracks of the Western Wall.
Some people do all three.
Come December, travelers will have a new option available to them when visiting Jerusalem. They can go underground to experience a portion of the Old City as it existed some 2,000 years ago.
An underground building
Following an excavation that lasted more than 150 years, a buried building constructed around A.D. 20 is set to open to the public this year.
The subterranean building is located steps from the Western Wall, a retaining wall on the western side of the Temple Mount, which is the holiest site in Judaism and the place where Jerusalem’s First and Second Temples once stood.
The Western Wall is also one of the top sites for travelers to Israel. It attracted 12 million visitors in 2019, said Eyal Carlin, the tourism commissioner for North America for the Israel Ministry of Tourism.
The excavated area dates to the period of the Second Temple, which was originally constructed in sixth century B.C. and later greatly expanded by Herod the Great, who ruled Jerusalem from 37 to 34 B.C. The Romans destroyed the temple around A.D. 70.
