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Phoenician-style ashlars. Similar to those north of the “straight joint,” stones with rough bosses and margins on four sides are evident at Byblos (top) and in the platform on which the temple to Eshmun stood near Sidon (bottom).

The Achaemenids, rulers of the Persian empire, may have built these temple podium walls in the sixth to fifth centuries B.C. However, similar Phoenician-style masonry may be dated to as early as the 14th century B.C. The author asserts that Phoenician-style masonry in the Temple Mount’s eastern wall is consistent with a possible tenth century B.C. date for those remains.