Broad Wall

The Broad Wall stands as a massive stone fortification, twenty-three feet wide, running through the heart of the Jewish Quarter. King Hezekiah ordered its construction in the eighth century before the common era to protect Jerusalem from the encroaching Assyrian army. When archaeologists uncovered it in the nineteen seventies, they found it had been built directly over existing houses, forcing residents to sacrifice their homes to create a line of defense. The wall remains where they laid it, jagged and exposed.