An aerial view encompassing most of the Temple Mount (Haram esh-Sharif), seen from the southwest. The structures present in the photo suggest a date in the 1930s or 1940s.

At bottom center is the Western Wall and in front of it (and piled up around the Mughrabi Gate area) the buildings of the Mughrabi Quarter, an Arab neighborhood razed by the Israelis in 1967 to create today's expansive prayer plaza. Atop the Haram sit the two Muslim holy places, the Dome of the Rock (center) and the al-Aqsa Mosque (right), dating in their original manifestations to 691 and 714 respectively. At the right edge of the photo, across the Kidron Valley, the Church of All Nations at Gethsemane is visible. At top, two institutions stand sentry on the Mount of Olives—Mt. Scopus ridge: the Augusta Victoria church and hospital (tower at far right) and the buildings of Hebrew University (center).

This view from the southeast is probably taken from the Arab village of Silwan, across the Kidron Valley. From this angle the entire width of the Temple Mount's southern wall is visible. In the years since 1967, the area in front of the southern wall, within the curve of the distant road visible here, has been excavated by Israeli archaeologists.

After Mohammed's death in 632 Islam rapidly spread beyond the confines of the Arabian peninsula, and by 638 Jerusalem had come under the Islamic rule of the Caliph Omar. At that time the Temple Mount was cleansed and reclaimed in the service of Islam and soon received a new name: To Muslims it became al-Haram esh-Sharif, the "Noble Sanctuary." When the Damascus-based Omayyad dynasty (ca. 660-750) came to control Jerusalem, it was they who created (in their original forms) the two great shrines we know today. They also connected Jerusalem's Haram compound with a foundational Muslim narrative: the Prophet's Night Journey from Mecca to al-masjid al-aqsa, "the farthest mosque," and his ascension to heaven and dialogue with Allah. That is, by the early 8th century, under Omayyad influence, the Haram became identified with "the farthest mosque" (Koran, Sura 17).

Date of photograph: between 1898 and 1914

A view looking north along the western wall of the Temple Mount, near the southwest corner. The three courses of curved stones jutting from the wall are known as Robinson's Arch, after Edward Robinson, the American scholar and biblical geographer who visited Palestine and first identified and documented them, in 1838.

This photo shows the ground level as it no doubt existed for many centuries, whereas today the spring of the arch looms over a deep excavated area that goes right down to the pavement of the Herodian street below. Robinson could not see a fourth course of related stones, just below ground level (even in this photo taken some 60 years later), a row of protruding, squarish "impost blocks" on which the springers rest.

The complete arch had a span of 41 feet (13 m) and rose 56 feet (17.5 m) above the pavement, and is now known to have carried a monumental staircase which proceeded from a western gate of the Temple Mount. After crossing over the street, the staircase then turned and descended to the south on other, smaller vaults (which have also been found archaeologically) to the Herodian street.

Date of photograph: between 1898 and 1914

Beneath the Temple Mount/Haram platform, at the southeast corner, lie these expansive vaulted spaces, long known as "Solomon's Stables," which have caught the attention of visitors to Jerusalem for centuries. The 13 north-south rows of vaults supported by 88 pillars serve structurally to support the esplanade above and carry it over the steep slope of the terrain here, which descends to both the south and the east.

Like most other Holy Land sites labeled with the name "Solomon," these spaces in reality have nothing whatsoever to do with the biblical king. Instead, they are situated within the massive retaining wall built by Herod the Great in the 1st century BC, and they are much more likely to have served as stables during the 12th century, when the Temple Mount was in the possession of the Crusaders (1099-1187).

Date of photograph: between 1920 and 1933

This is a very rare view indeed, looking in through the western portal of the Double Gate. The viewpoint is actually the interior of the medieval tower built in front of the gate, looking north. The decorative archivolt (applied arch), seen at top just above the Corinthian capital, is part of the same architectural element seen outside over the eastern portal. The column is one of four which flank the two portals on either side; they are attached at their tops to the Herodian lintel and are probably in secondary use here. Inside the Double Gate is an impressive vestibule comprising four domes; in the photo, two of the domed spaces are just visible beyond the column and in front of the stairway, which ascends northward inside the passage. These interior elements of the Double Gate are regarded as a mix of Herodian construction and later rebuilding, especially by the Umayyads.

Date of photograph: between 1940 and 1946

This fascinating photograph (looking northwest) shows a room lying beneath the surface of the Temple Mount. This space was the subject of several descriptions and drawings by 19th century explorers but has rarely been seen by Westerners—or photographed. Much better known, actually, is the opposite side of the thick wall seen here at the end of the vaulted room: it is the massive lintel and blocked opening of an original western entrance of the Herodian Temple Mount, the so-called "Barclay's Gate" partially visible in the very southern end of today's Western Wall (women's prayer area). The ancient gate was identified in modern times by James T. Barclay, an American Protestant medical missionary and amateur explorer of Jerusalem's ancient places.

The vaulting overhead is the top of the Herodian gate passage, and the dark line in the masonry of the far wall (beneath the shallow arch) corresponds to the bottom of the great lintel (apparently the lintel itself is not visible). Experts estimate the height of the Herodian gate opening, from sill to lintel, at 25 to 30 feet (7.8 to 9.3m), with the sill lying only a few yards (meters) above the Herodian street. Thus, in the original gate passage here, a broad stairway no doubt ascended (far beneath the floor shown here) toward the east and the surface of the Temple Mount. The original passage ran eastward from the western wall for at least 70 feet (22 m), but it was reconfigured and altered in many ways over the ages. For example, the distinctive arch of chamfered voussoirs (beveled and molded arch-stones) seen here, and others like it, point to a major redesign and rebuilding of the passage in Omayyad times (7th-8th centuries), when the gate was still open and in use. Since the Arab chronicler Al-Muqadassi in 985 still lists the gate (called by him, and all previous Arab sources, Bab Hitta) among the active entrances into the Haram, it must have gone out of use and was blocked sometime after that date. The eastern part of the passage was walled off at some point, plastered, and used as a cistern.

The "al-Buraq" (Arabic, "lightning") commemorated by the mosque is the mythical winged beast who bore Mohammed on his Night Journey from Mecca to al-masjid al-aqsa, "the farthest mosque," and thence to the "seventh heaven" where he had a dialogue with God. In the course of the journey, on which he is accompanied by Gabriel and encounters biblical patriarchs and prophets (including Jesus), the Prophet pauses to pray at the "farthest mosque," tethering al-Buraq to a wall there.

It is interesting that the floor level of the mosque lies only a meter or two higher than that of the prayer plaza just outside. In other words, here, within a few meters of each other, on opposite sides of a blocked ancient gate, Jews and Muslims—simultaneously at times, yet always unseen by the other—both pray!