stb-1992-08
KING SOLOMON'S QUARRIES
R.W. Bro. Leon Zeldis
Editor, "The Israel Freemason"
Me'arat Tzedkiyahu or Cave of Zedekiah,
more commonly known as the Quarries of
King Solomon, is a deep cavern, opening
beneath the wall of the Old City of Jerusalem,
and extending for hundreds of meters below
the surface of the city in the direction of the
Temple Mount.
The cave's entrance, which had become
lost in the course of centuries of vandalism
and neglect, was rediscovered in 1854. The
opening lies at the base of the wall, some 100
meters north of Damascus Gate and near King
Herod's Gate. It is one of the most extensive
caves in Israel, measuring about 220 meters in
length and some 900 meters in circumference.
According to tradition. the cave extends all
the way to the plain of Jericho. The last King
of Judah, Zedekiah, is said to have fled through
this cavern when Jerusalem fell into the hands
of Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonian king, in
the summer of 587 B.C. It was Josephus
Flavius, the great Jewish historian of the first
century C.E. who for the first time called it the
"Royal Cavern". This later became "King
Solomon's Quarries". Whatever truth there
may be in that designation, the fact remains
that the cave did serve as a quarry for building
stones, and the half-sawn blocks of stone still
in place give mute testimony to this effect.
The type of stone found in the cave is the
white limestone locally known as melech, or
"royal" stone. This is very good for building
and, although it is not too hard, it does not
flake off. Very large blocks of this stone can be
quarried.
The stone at the cave opening is of a different
kind, called mizzi-helou or "sweet" stone. It is
easily worked though its striations prevent its
being used in large blocks. In the cave there is
also a third kind of stone, known as mizziahmar or "red" stone.
The cave is divided into chambers, separated
by broad columns left by the quarriers to
support the ceiling. In the inner chambers,
traces of the techniques used by the workers
can be observed. Broad slits were hewn along
the wall and dry wooden wedges were driven
into them. Water was then poured over the
wedges until eventually the expanding wood
cracked the stone along the slits. This primitive
method of quarrying was quite effective and is
still used in many parts of the world.
As the quarries in the cave are quite close to
the Temple Mount (Mount Moriah) and to the
City of David, even very large stones could
have been transported there. The limestone,
when exposed to natural daylight and the
elements, becomes harder. Obviously, it would
have been simpler to use this quarry rather
than bring heavy stones up from Jaffa via the
winding road up the hills to Jerusalem.
In some chambers, deep pits remain at places
where stone was taken out in large quantities.
These are now railed off to prevent the
accidental fall of a visitor. Every few yards,
niches were carved in the stone walls to place
oil lamps. Traces of soot can be seen above
some. Huge half- quarried rectangular slabs of
stone, nearly ready to be removed, pose the
intriguing question, why the workmen left so
suddenly, leaving the valuable stones in
place.
Another interesting point, made by Ill. Bro.
William C. Blaine, 33ø,(1)is that because of
the cavern's depth underground--nearly 90
meters--the sounds of tools could not have
been heard at the construction site of King
Solomon's Temple, on the Temple Mount. This
would explain verse 6:7 in the First Book of
Kings: "In building the Temple, only blocks
dressed at the quarry were used, and no
hammer, chisel or any other iron tool was
heard at the Temple site while it was being
built."
Another legend is that deep inside the cave
are buried the treasures of the Temple, hidden
by the Priests when the Roman armies under
Titus were besieging the city.(2)
A few years after the cave's entrance had
been rediscovered, in 1868, this was the place
where the first recorded Masonic ceremony
performed in Palestine took place, on
Wednesday, May 13. The initiative came from
M.W. Bro. Robert Morris, Past Grand Master
of the Grand Lodge of Kentucky, who had
come to the Holy Land in search of traces of
Freemasonry from the time of King Solomon.
Rob Morris, as he signed his name, found only
a few isolated Masons living in Palestine,
which was under Turkish rule. Bro. Morris
had met in Jerusalem Bro. Charles Warren, the
British military engineerand archeologist, who
had been sent by the Palestine Exploration
Fund and who became the first W.M. of
Quatuor Coronati Lodge No. 2076 in London,
the premier Lodge of Research in the world.
By chance, a British naval unit, Il.M.S.
Lord Clyde, arrived in Jaffa for a brief visit.
The Captain and several officers were Masons.
Morris invited them all to a ceremony in the
degree of Secret Monitor, performed in the
cavern on Wednesday, 13 May 1868. Others
who took part in the ceremony were the
Governor of Jaffa, Noureddin Effendi, who
was a member of Lodge Amitie Clemente of
Paris and held the 28ø degree in the Scottish
Rite, the Consul of Prussia in Jerusalem, Henry
Petermann, and the American Vice-Consul,
R. Beardsley, of Elkhart, Indiana.
As Bro. Morris relates in his book
Freemasonry in the Holy Land (New York,
1872, p. 30), after the conclusion of the
ceremony, the participants separated and
"endeavoring to return to the entrance through
the devious and interminable passages of that
enormous cavern, lost our way, and came nigh
being compelled to remain there until our
friends would search for us, the next day."
This incident will serve to give an idea about
the size of the underground quarry.
The cave continued being used occasionally
by local Masons, particularly to perform the
Mark Master degree, for which the cave is
remarkably well-suited. This tradition was
broken in 1948,when the Old City of Jerusalem
was captured by Jordan's Arab Legion. Fearing
that some of the tunnels running from the main
cave might lead to the Jewish part of the city,
the Jordanian authorities sealed the entrance
to the cave. Only in 1967 were Masonic
ceremonies resumed, after the Holy City had
been reunited, and after the entrance to the
Quarries was cleaned of rubble and the cave
itself made safe for visitors.
On July 2, 1969, a solemn ceremony was
held at this place on occasion of the
consecration of the Supreme Royal Arch
Chapter of the State of Israel.
The cave is now an official tourist site, open
to the public . Individuals and groups may visit
it during daytime hours (there is a small
entrance fee). For Masonic visitors, however,
a particularly moving experience is the
participation in one of the ceremonies
organized once or twice a year by the Grand
Lodge of the State of Israel or the Supreme
Grand Royal Arch Chapter of Israel. In those
opportunities, the cave is sealed off to nonMasons, and a Masonic degree is worked,
sometimes in Hebrew but more often in
English, for the benefit of visiting Brethren
from abroad. The degree usually worked is the
Mark Master which in Israel, as in Scotland,
belongs within the Royal Arch system of
degrees. The legendary story forming the
background to this theatrical degree takes place
in King Solomon's quarries, and concerns a
stone rejected as irregular, which turns out to
be the capstone of the entrance to the Temple.
Performing this ceremony in an actual quarry,
in the very heart of Old Jerusalem, carries
deep symbolic meaning and nobody who has
attended this ceremony is likely to ever forget.
Brethren wishing to take part in such
ceremony, or to organize a group for this
purpose, should contact the Grand Secretary
of the Grand Lodge of Israel (P.O. Box 33206,
61331, Tel-Aviv, Israel). They can be assured
of receiving all possible fraternal assistance.
(1) William C. Blaine, 33ø, "King Solomons
Quarries", The Israel Scottish Rite, Vol. 3,
Nø1, December, 1973, p.23.
(2) Roy Brunton, "King Solomon's Quarries",
The Scottsh Rite,#7,January-March, 1969,p.13.
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