Zedekiah's Cave, which is called the quarry even King Solomon - an underground space beneath the old town, formed in ancient times because of the mining of limestone here.

This is the largest quarry in Jerusalem extends below ground to the east of Damascus Gate about two hundred meters long and a hundred - wide. Upstairs noise Muslim Quarter, and it's hard to imagine that in the ten-depth is a huge underground hall gala, keeping the traces of a thousand-year hard work.

The whole cave, except for the entrance into it, - man-made object, gradually created by human hands. It is known that during the reign of Herod the Great (40-4 gg. BC. E.) It was the main quarry in Jerusalem. Hence I went stone for the reconstruction of the Temple and the construction of the retaining wall of the Temple Mount - their remains are known today as the Wailing Wall. It is believed, however, that the development of career started long before Herod. Legend has it that ten centuries ago, when the Old Testament King Solomon, there were made of stone blocks of the first Temple. No archaeological evidence that there is, but persistent tradition has assigned a cave second name associated with the name of the wise king.

The main object of the same name goes back to another legend, related to the events of the VI century BC. e. King Zedekiah of Judah allegedly tried to escape through a cave in Jerusalem, besieged troops Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar. Water droplets that escape from the ceiling of the cave, also known as "the tears of Zedekiah."

In the Byzantine and Islamic periods are also quarried limestone building. It was convenient indoor careers working in any weather. On the rocks you can see Arabic, Greek, Armenian and traces of graffiti tools masons, all around are almost ready to abandoned units. French archaeologist Charles Clermont-Hanno found in a narrow niche is not too artistic carvings depicting a winged cherub.

When work stopped in the cave, it was forgotten almost three hundred years. Newly discovered it in 1854, American missionary James Turner Barclay. His dog, chasing a fox, rummaging in the mud near the city wall, and suddenly disappeared in the open hole. Barclay night with his two sons, dressed as Arabs entered the cave, where they found a human skeleton and a large number of bats.

A few years later the cave discovered the Masons, who have since conducted their ceremony here. The widest part of the cave is called "Hall Masons." Today the cave Zedekiah - a place of pilgrimage Masons around the world.

At the end of the last century in the cave were built track for tourists, installed fixtures. From the entrance stairs down to the main hall, where the galleries are illuminated in numerous branches and crannies carved into the rock over the centuries. A distinctive feature of the underground museum - the coolness that prevails here in the hottest day of Jerusalem.