Stay up to date with notifications from The Independent

Notifications can be managed in browser preferences.

Jersualem’s Western Wall to get a facelift

Ancient stones show scars from more than two thousand years of scorching sunlight and torrential rain

Samuel Osborne
Tuesday 23 February 2021 17:49 GMT
Comments
A worker of the Israeli Antiquities Authority uses a syringe to fill fissures in boulders at the Western Wall
A worker of the Israeli Antiquities Authority uses a syringe to fill fissures in boulders at the Western Wall (MENAHEM KAHANA/AFP via Getty Images)

Your support helps us to tell the story

This election is still a dead heat, according to most polls. In a fight with such wafer-thin margins, we need reporters on the ground talking to the people Trump and Harris are courting. Your support allows us to keep sending journalists to the story.

The Independent is trusted by 27 million Americans from across the entire political spectrum every month. Unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock you out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. But quality journalism must still be paid for.

Help us keep bring these critical stories to light. Your support makes all the difference.

Jerusalem’s Western Wall is getting a face lift after two millennia of wear and tear.

The ancient stones are showing the scars from more than two thousand years of scorching sunlight and torrential rain.

Israeli conservationists have begun mending the cracks and filling out the battered surfaces of the stones that are the most in need.

The Western Wall, the holiest prayer site in Judaism, is an outer remnant of the second of two Jewish temples built by Herod the Great more than 2,000 years ago and destroyed by the Romans in 70AD.

It sits in Jerusalem’s old city, next to a sacred compound revered by Jews as the Temple Mount and Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary, and lies a short walk away from Christianity’s Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

Huge crowds gather at the wall to pray and visitors often stuff notes in cracks between the stones.

The Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) tracks the condition of each stone and has begun treating the surface of those which show the most wear.

Using a portable lift and a medical syringe, the team delicately injects a limestone-based grout into the gaps and fissures in the stones.

"It is the best possible method of healing the stones and the ultimate defence against weathering," Yossi Vaknin, head conservator for the IAA at the Western Wall, told Reuters.

And it is not just the climate that has taken a toll, he said. Plants have taken root and birds nest in the wall, making the repair work even more necessary.

Additional reporting by Reuters

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in