BIBLE HISTORY DAILY

Pilgrimage to the Jerusalem Temple

What archaeology reveals about early Jewish pilgrimage

The Ophel excavations in Jerusalem, located just outside the southern wall of the ancient Temple Mount. Image courtesy the New Ophel Excavations, Hebrew University.

In the Fall 2025 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review, archaeologists Uzi Leibner and Orit Peleg-Barkat examine the latest finds from the Ophel excavations in Jerusalem and what they reveal about pilgrimage to the Holy City during the late Second Temple period. Here, we highlight Bible History Daily articles that report on recent discoveries in Jerusalem and beyond that further inform our understanding of how early Jewish pilgrims experienced the journey to Jerusalem and Temple-related rituals during the first centuries BCE and CE. In addition, we list recent academic articles and book publications that present detailed discussions of the latest scholarly findings concerning Jerusalem pilgrimage.

Bible History Daily

Academic Articles and Reports

In their Biblical Archaeology Review article, Leibner and Peleg-Barkat discuss a number of recent academic studies that have examined Jerusalem as a pilgrimage city. Below is a list of various articles and books where these studies have been published.

Omri Abadi et al., “The Jerusalem Pilgrimage Road in the Second Temple Period: An Anthropological and Archaeological Perspective,” Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences 16.173 (2024), pp. 1–24. [open access]

David Adan-Bayewitz et al., “Preferential Distribution of Lamps from the Jerusalem Area in the Late Second Temple Period (Late First Century B.C.E.–70 C.E.),” Bulletin of the American Society of Overseas Research 350 (2008), pp. 37–85.

Guy Bar-Oz et al., “‘Holy Garbage’: A Quantitative Study of the City-Dump of Early Roman Jerusalem,” Levant 39.1 (2007), pp. 1–12.

Asher Grossberg, “Cooking Pots with Holes Found in Jerusalem and the Customs of Haverim and Ameiha-Aretz,” New Studies on Jerusalem 8 (2002), pp. 59–71 [Hebrew].

David Gurevich, “The Water Pools and Pilgrimage to Jerusalem in the Late Second Temple Period,” Palestine Exploration Quarterly 149.2 (2017), pp. 103–134.

Yotam Tepper and Yigal Tepper, The Road That Bears the People: Pilgrimage Roads to Jerusalem in the Second Temple Times (Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 2013) [Hebrew].