For Their Death, the Entrants Have No One to Blame But Themselves

JerusalemIsrael

The lower step in the staircase leading to the Dome of the Rock platform on the Temple Mount, is a remnant of the auxiliary wall that surrounded the Temple Mount and was called "Khil". Around the wall, there was a low stone partition on which warning inscriptions in different languages were placed, forbidding the gentiles from entering the Temple Mount compound. This partition was called "the grid".

It is not clear what was the exact shape of the grid. According to the testimony of Josephus Flavius, it was made of stones, and the partition was "most beautiful in its construction”. Some interpreted that it was made in a certain way of alternating stones, like a grate, as implied by the name "grid".

Two stones with a warning inscription were found. One of them was found intact, used in secondary construction, by Charles Clermont-Ganneau in 1871 (who was only 21 years old at the time). The stone was integrated into the wall of the Muslim school "Al-Dawadriya" (الدوادرية) close to the "Dark Gate" (Bab al-Atim,باب العتم), which leads to the Temple Mount from the north.

On the stone it is written in Greek:

"Μηθένα ἀλλογενῆ εἰσπορεύεσθαι ἐντὸς τοῦ περὶ τὸ ἱερὸν τρυφάκτου καὶ περιβόλου. "

"It is forbidden to let a stranger into the compound that surrounds the temple. For their death, the entrants have no one to blame but themselves." 

The stone was taken by the Turkish authorities and is now displayed in a museum in Istanbul. Another stone was found incomplete and is in the Israel Museum in Jerusalem.

This is how the news about the finding of the grating stone, in the Havazelet newspaper, were published in Jerusalem in October 1871:

Additional sources:

https://www.nli.org.il/he/newspapers/?a=d&d=hzt18711012-01.1.3&e=——-he-20–1–img-txIN%7ctxTI————–1
https://he.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D7%A1%D7%95%D7%A8%D7%92_(%D7%91%D7%99%D7%AA_%D7%94%D7%9E%D7%A7%D7%93%D7%A9)
https://he.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D7%94%D7%97%D7%99%D7%9C#/media/%D7%A7%D7%95%D7%91%D7%A5:%D7%A9%D7%A8%D7%99%D7%93%D7%99%D7%9D_%D7%9E%D7%91%D7%99%D7%AA_%D7%94%D7%9E%D7%A7%D7%93%D7%A9_%D7%91%D7%94%D7%A8_%D7%94%D7%91%D7%99%D7%AA.jpg
https://asif.co.il/files_author/%D7%94%D7%A8%D7%91-%D7%96%D7%9C%D7%9E%D7%9F-%D7%9E%D7%A0%D7%97%D7%9D-%D7%A7%D7%95%D7%A8%D7%9F/
https://www.academia.edu/99547387/%D7%9E%D7%99%D7%93%D7%95%D7%AA_%D7%94%D7%97%D7%99%D7%9C
https://www.livius.org/pictures/israel/jerusalem/jerusalem-temple-complex/temple-inscription/
https://www.gov.il/he/departments/news/sorag
https://www.biblicalstudies.org.uk/pdf/pefqs/1871_132.pdf

(Anecdote authored by: דניאל)

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