Beneath a functioning residential neighborhood in Jerusalem, archaeologists have uncovered one of the ancient world’s most significant urban streets: a 600-meter stone road used by Jewish pilgrims during the Second Temple period to reach the Temple Mount. Excavated over more than a decade by the Israel Antiquities Authority, the road is now open to the public through the City of David National Park, allowing visitors to walk the same route their ancestors traveled nearly 2,000 years ago.
The project became the most complex and expensive archaeological excavation in Israel’s history. A newly published study in ‘Atiqot adds another layer to the site’s significance: a Byzantine-era stone street excavated nearby, running along the same Tyropoeon Valley corridor, confirms the route functioned as a major north-south artery across multiple centuries and civilizations.
A Road Built Under Roman Rule
The Pilgrimage Road, also called the Stepped Street, runs from the Pool of Siloam in Jerusalem’s City of David to the southwestern corner of the Temple Mount. For centuries, scholars attributed its construction to King Herod. Coins found directly beneath the road changed that conclusion entirely.
Based on those numismatic finds, the Israel Antiquities Authority determined the road was built during the rule of the Roman prefect Pontius Pilate, dating it to between 30 and 40 AD. The Jewish historian Josephus had recorded that Pilate funded an aqueduct using money from the Temple treasury, a move that sparked riots. The road suggests Pilate was simultaneously overseeing other major construction in the city.
“This is the second urban project in Jerusalem after the Temple Mount,” Szanton said. Each stone slab used in the road’s construction measured roughly 2 meters long, 1.5 meters wide, and weighed approximately 2.5 tons. Altogether, about 10,000 cubic meters of stone were quarried north of Jerusalem and transported to the building site.
About 7.5 meters wide and lined by houses on both sides, the street served pilgrims during festivals and local residents the rest of the year. Merchants set up stalls along its edges during pilgrimage seasons, where visitors could buy food or animals for Temple sacrifice. A stepped structure discovered partway along the route may have served as a meeting place or lost-and-found station, though its exact function remains uncertain.
Digging Sideways Through a Living Neighborhood
Excavating the road presented a challenge unlike most archaeological projects. Because the ancient street lies directly beneath occupied buildings, the team could not simply dig straight down.
“We had to invent a new methodology,” Szanton explained. Instead of the standard vertical approach, workers began underground and moved horizontally, clearing half a meter at a time. Every 1.5 to 2 meters, construction crews installed metal support arches to hold up the street above before the next section could be cleared. Electricians and ventilation specialists worked alongside the archaeologists throughout.
The excavations took more than a decade and involved hundreds of people. The result is a tunnel-like walkway beneath the modern city, fully accessible and illuminated, where visitors can see the original stone paving underfoot.
A Destruction Layer and a Hidden Drainage Channel
Among the most striking finds along the Pilgrimage Road is the destruction layer left by the Roman siege of Jerusalem in 70 AD. When Roman forces set the city on fire, buildings on either side of the street collapsed directly onto the road surface. Pottery, glass, stone vessels, wooden objects, and coins minted in Judea at the time were sealed beneath that debris and preserved.
Beneath the road itself, archaeologists found a drainage channel constructed at the same time as the street, designed to carry rainwater away during the rainy season. Evidence suggests Jewish fighters used the channel as a hiding place during the Great Revolt. Archaeologist Eli Shukron, who excavated the channel, found a Roman sword inside. Other objects recovered there include ancient trading tokens, likely used in the exchange of animals for Temple sacrifice, and a golden pomegranate possibly made for the High Priest’s robe.
About two-thirds along the road’s length, the large stone paving slabs disappear entirely before resuming near the Temple Mount’s southwestern corner. Researchers believe the missing stones were looted in a later era and repurposed elsewhere, though the question remains open.
The Givati Parking Lot and the Byzantine Street
The Givati Parking Lot excavation, running since 2007 on the northwestern edge of the City of David and described as Jerusalem’s most extensive active dig, has produced finds spanning the First Temple period through the early Islamic era. Among the most significant: cellars from a large Second Temple residential structure possibly connected to Queen Helena of Adiabene, a convert to Judaism who lived in Jerusalem during that period, and 264 gold coins from 613 AD found in a Byzantine-era building, deposited on the eve of the Persian conquest of the city.
A 2026 study documents the excavation of a separate Byzantine stone-paved street in the same area, between the Givati Parking Lot and the Ottoman walls of the Old City. Six settlement strata were exposed, ranging from the Early Roman to the Early Islamic period. The Byzantine street, running north-south along the Tyropoeon Valley, likely served as a processional route connecting the Siloam Church to the Nea Church and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.
The Pilgrimage Road ends at the foot of the Temple Mount, just south of the Western Wall Plaza, within the Davidson Archaeological Park, where the stone surface meets the ruins of the wall destroyed by Rome in 70 AD.
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