Paul Calvert spoke with Dudi Mevorach from the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, about the history of the model of Jerusalem in the late Second Temple period, and how it's changed over the years in response to archaeological excavations.

The Temple Mount itself is a huge building elevated above the city. It looks like a huge Roman forum, or sacred precinct. It is in fact the largest sacred precinct in Roman times, bigger than any other Roman precinct in the world. That is not a small thing for Judea.

This is the way Herod operated. He did everything bigger, better and nicer. Within this very classic Roman architecture and eastern style building is planted the Temple itself.

It is another example of Herod's character. He does things in two different ways. His legs are planted one in the West and one in Judea with eastern traditions. He builds the Jewish Temple bigger and larger than it ever was within Roman architecture. He knows who his masters are, but he also knows his citizens and he serves both.

Paul: So the Second Temple was bigger than the First Temple?

Dudi: Much bigger. Herod builds the Second Temple on the site of the Second Temple that was built originally by Zerubbabel and then refurbished by the Hasmoneans. He destroys all that and rebuilds the Temple Mount and the Temple itself.

Paul: This is an important place for a Christian to come and see, because this will open up the Bible won't it?

Dudi: Right, so one of the things that Professor Avi-Yonah does when he builds this model, is that he chooses specific sites that are described by Flavius Josephus in the city. He specifically chooses important sites for Christians in Jerusalem, because one of the intentions of the site is to serve tourists. This is why he chooses not only the Temple Mount and the Temple, but for instance, the Palace of Caiaphas on Mount Zion, the Tomb of David on Mount Zion, the Palace of Herod, Golgotha of course, the Bethesda Pools, and many other important Christian sites from the gospels or stations of Jesus actions in Jerusalem, or relating to very important historical moments.

I would say this is a must for every Christian that comes to Jerusalem.

Paul: There must be a lot of research that goes into this.

Dudi: A lot of research.

Built in the sixties it holds all the research up to the sixties, but from the sixties onwards, as excavations weren't very large in Jerusalem, both south of the Temple Mount in the City of David, and next to the Temple Mount itself, and in the Western Hill, or as we know it today, as the Jewish Quarter, vast excavations would have taken place. They are continuing as we speak.

We have much more information and we are updating the model according to this information, but very carefully, because as you may know when you do excavations, archaeologists tend to argue about the results. So we don't change things that are under argument, but only things that are certain. For instance one of the very important things that we have learned is that the Pool of Siloam is much further south than the original place and was actually a mikveh, a ritual bath for the pilgrims coming to the Temple to a ritual bath before they go up to the Temple. Only Jews that have taken a purified bath can enter the Temple itself.

Some of the things are speculations and are built as parallels to things that were found in other sites, for instance you see that theatre, a very Roman theatre, we have not found that theatre. We did find one seat and two tickets and we know there was a theatre because Flavius tells us so, but we don't know the exact location. Avi-Yonah hypothesised that it's right there on the slopes of the Western Hill towards the Temple, which is a very reasonable assumption, but no proof, so we are not changing that.

There was a hippodrome or a horse race track, as you can see the footprint of it south of the Temple Mount. Excavations proved that it was not there. Something else was there so we have taken it out. We do not know where to re-position it, so we have not re-positioned it, but we know that there was a track like this.