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To
stop them getting worse and to ensure their integrity, Israeli
conservators are giving the stones a face lift, mending the
cracks and filling out their battered surfaces.
The Western Wall, Judaism's holiest prayer site, is an outer
remnant of the second of two Jewish temples, built by Herod the
Great more than 2,000 years ago and destroyed by the Romans in
70 AD.
It nestles in Jerusalem's old city, next to a sacred compound
revered by Jews as the Temple Mount and Muslims as the Noble
Sanctuary, a short walk from Christianity's Church of the Holy
Sepulchre. Huge crowds gather at the wall for prayer sessions
and visitors often stuff notes in cracks between the stones.
The Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) tracks the condition of
each stone and has begun treating the surface of those most in
need.
Using a portable lift and a medical syringe, its team delicately
injects a limestone-based grout into the gaps and fissures in
the stones.
"It is the best possible method of healing the stones and the
ultimate defence against weathering," said IAA's Yossi Vaknin.
And it is not just the climate that has taken a toll, he said.
Plants have taken root and birds nest in the wall, making the
repair work even more necessary.
(Reporting by Ari Rabinovitch, editing by Ed Osmond)
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