James Fleming

A broad stairway led up to the Double Gate of the Temple Mount in Herodian Jerusalem. The stairway is about 200 feet wide; its 30 steps cut from bedrock were sufficiently well-preserved to allow archaeologists to restore the stairway to its original magnificence The Double Gate (unseen to the left) and the Triple Gate (seen along the wall half way to the corner) together were called the Huldah Gates. Both are sealed today. Before 70 A.D. when the Temple stood on the Mount, pilgrims climbed these steps and passed through the Double Gate into a passage with beautifully decorated ceilings up to the Royal Stoa on the Temple Mount.