JERUSALEM — Israeli archeologists have cleared part of the path they say they believe was taken by Jesus as he entered this city not long before his crucifixion.
They have dug through nearly two millenniums of rubble and construction to reveal a path of broad white stone tiles, passing under what was then a colossal arch at the foot of the Jewish Temple's towering outer walls.
"For the first time in the archeology of Jerusalem, we have exposed a large part of the network of roads built by Herod around the Temple Mount," said Gideon Avni, chief archeologist of Jerusalem.
When Jesus came to Jerusalem, he "came from the Mount of Olives, probably stepping on this pathway," Avni said.
The excavation done in the past four years extends various projects undertaken since 1869, digging through many layers of Jerusalem's Old City adjacent to the Western Wall revered by Jews and at the base of the Islamic Al Aqsa mosque.
Archeologists have excavated levels that reveal three of the many periods of Jerusalem's rich history. They have exposed streets used during the Jewish period under King Herod, a broad street and several homes that existed during the Christian Byzantine period that started in the 4th century, and parts of four Islamic palaces erected after Arabs conquered the city in AD 638.
Jerusalem's archeological history is particularly difficult to sort out because so many peoples built on top of the buildings of the previous group, often using the same stones. The Herodian street of Jesus' time has been known to archeologists for a century, but architects now have cleared about 70 yards of the avenue to show what it was like at the time.
"I have a sense of responsibility to the public to leave not just dry reports that 10 people in the world will read, but the site so people can learn about it," said Ronny Reich, who directed the excavations.
The work also exposed several narrow shops built of stone, which were part of what would have been a busy commercial avenue outside the temple. They found bronze coins and weights that might have been used to measure meat or yarn, Reich said.
The most dramatic sight of the find is a pile of huge stones at one end of the street, uncovered where they fell 160 feet onto the street when Roman soldiers methodically destroyed the Jewish Temple and the walls surrounding it in AD 70.
