THE OMNI REPORT: Archeology Site of the Month

The Dome of the Rock

This holiday season we look to the Holy Land and to what is considered the holiest city on Earth, Jerusalem and its Dome of the Rock.

What makes the city of Jerusalem sacred? It is a major player in the world's three largest and most popular religions. For the Jewish people, it is the biblical city of Zion, the city of David and the site of Solomon's great temple. For Christians, it is the city where a 12-year old Jesus blew the minds of the temple elders with his religious understanding and knowledge. More importantly for Christians, it is the site of last supper and where the crucifixion and the resurrection of Jesus took place. For the Muslim people, it is the place where the prophet Muhammad ascended to heaven with the angel Gabriel.

Jerusalem houses over twelve hundred synagogues, over one hundred and fifty churches and over seventy mosques. In addition, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the al-Aqsa Mosque and The Western Wall are located here. Unquestionably, the 3 most well known places to worship on Earth.

We turn to the The Dome of the Rock erected high on the Temple Mount (also known as Mount Moriah), widely considered the oldest Islamic building in the world. The rock itself, over which the dome is built, is considered by Jews to be the site of the Holy of Holies. It is placed over the Foundation Stone that covers that Well of Souls. According to religious legend it is here that Yahweh fashioned Adam out of the very ground. And it was this spot, this rock, where Adam, Cain, Abel, and Noah offered sacrifices to their God. Additional Jewish sources claim this to be the place where Abraham wanted to and almost killed his only son for his Jewish God, Yahweh. And it is also known as the place where Jacob had a dream about a "ladder" from heaven with angels ascending and descending upon it. That's a lot of history, right there.

The Dome itself is magnificent. It is said to have been casted from 100,000 gold dinar coins, that were melted down to be used as the exterior. It's gleaming gold can be seen for miles. It's difficult to believe the dome was built between the years 685 and 691, when such architecture is rarely designed or built today with modern construction equipment.

The walls are constructed of porcelain in splendid, vivid Byzantine design. Thousands of lavish tiles comprising mosaics decorate the exterior walls and the inside as well, along with heavy marble inlays. The inside is splendid and the rock itself is right there, left as an unfinished floor of mountain, basically.

Thousands of pilgrims and tourists come to Jerusalem and The Dome of the Rock every year. It is widely held that Israel, Jerusalem in particular, is one of the safest places to travel in the world. Hundreds of tour groups conduct tours here daily and during the religious holidays thousands of Catholics go to re-trace the footsteps of Jesus and walk the the stations of the Cross without incident or fear.