The result obtained from these data is extremely striking. The weak point of all restorations of the Temple which I have as yet seen is this, that no attention has been paid to the character of the ground, or to the elevation of the building. If we apply the well-known measures of the Temple courts, given in the Middoth, to the ground, on the assumption that the Sakhrah is the Holy of Holies, the result is satisfactory, and in fact exact, as regards level. The various levels of the courts we know from the writings of Maimonides; they agree to a foot with those of the rock round the Sakhrah, as a glance at the plan will show: but only in this position is it possible to make them agree; in any other we are obliged to suppose gigantic masonry foundations which are not mentioned by the writer who says the Temple was built on "the higher part of the hillâ (B. J. v. 5, 2), and of which not a trace has been found inside the Haram.
The plan shows this agreement better than words can explain it; there is only space here to point out some of the special tests which can be applied.
Placing the floor of the Holy House on the level of the top of the Sakhrah, 2440 feet above the Mediterranean, the Altar-Court should be at a level six cubits lower (2432). The rock is actually known to have the level 2432, immediately west of the supposed position of the Altar on the present plan.
The Court of the Women should have a level 2418·6. The rock in this part is known to be lower than 2419 over a considerable area. The gates north and south of the Temple led down to a level about 2425. The rock in their immediate neighbourhood has been fixed at the levels 2425 and 2426. The outer part, near the Soreg or Wall of Partition, had, on the east, a level 2410. The rock is here known at the level 2409 and 2406.
Nor are these the only indications of exactness in detail. North of the Court of the Priests was the great Gate-house Moked, "the house of the fireplace,â from which a gallery, apparently that noticed by Josephus (Ant. xv. 11, 7), ran under the Sanctuary to the subterranean gate Tadi or Teri, and from this gate the Bath-house was reached. The great subterranean passage called No. 1 on the Ordnance Survey, starts from the north wall of the Court of the Priests, as placed on the present plan, and it leads just as far as the boundary of the 500 cubits. On this same line is the north end of the great excavation No. 3, which Captain Warren has proposed as representing the Bath-house; somewhere on the line of No. 1 gallery, then, I would place Tadi, just outside the Sanctuary, close to the entrance of the Bath-house vault. I may remark that a visit in 1874 showed me that these great galleries are closed on the north by rude modern walls, and the vaults may very possibly run on to meet near the north wall of the Platform.