This reconstruction follows the late Second Temple as described in Mishnah Middot and Tamid, with Rambam used to clarify selected structures. It presents an architectural learning environment rather than a reconstruction of one documented moment in the daily service. Jerusalem’s houses, groves, atmospheric effects and minor architectural ornament are artistic. The texts preserve many precise measurements, but do not provide a complete modern building survey.
Middot 4:7 gives the east–west sequence: the Ulam wall is five amos thick, the porch eleven deep, the next wall six thick, the Holy Place forty long, the separating interval one, and the Holy of Holies twenty long. Both main interiors are twenty amos wide. The rear wall-and-cell sequence completes the hundred-amah length. These dimensions govern the central rooms. Middot 4:7
The two curtains follow the first opinion in Yoma 5:1 and Rambam’s explanation of the Second Temple arrangement. The outer curtain has an opening on the south and the inner curtain an opening on the north. A person following that route travels across the one-amah interval. Rabbi Yosei’s alternative describes one curtain; it is not the selected arrangement. The simulator also allows the curtains to draw back for exploration. This full opening animation is an educational control, not a claim about a daily historical ceremony. Yoma 5:1, Rambam 4:2
Walk close to the curtains and press E, or use the on-screen curtain button. The panel also has a curtain control. The fabric and its collision boundary move together, leaving a broad central passage when opened. The normal offset side openings remain available when the curtains are closed.
The Holy of Holies contains the Foundation Stone rather than a reconstructed Ark. Yoma 5:2 describes the stone after the Ark was removed and gives its projection above the ground as three fingerbreadths. Its footprint and exact placement are not established by that passage. Yoma 5:2
The sanctuary was roofed. Middot gives a six-amah foundation, forty-amah principal storey, five-amah ceiling-and-roof assembly, forty-amah upper storey, another five-amah assembly, three-amah parapet and one-amah bird deterrent. These add to one hundred. Rambam explains each five-amah assembly as ornamented ceiling, beit dilpa, structural ceiling and plaster. His beit dilpa is an empty space; other commentators explain its construction differently. The scene follows this selected vertical ledger. Middot 4:6, Rambam 4:3
“Crown” can refer to different features in Temple depictions. The roof’s bird deterrent is described by Rambam as a sword-like iron sheet around the parapet; Josephus describes sharp points. This model retains the iron parapet blade and adds a pointed outline. That combination is a visual interpretation, not proof that every detail appeared together. Its gold facade mouldings have an illustrative profile. Rabbi Yehudah’s four-amah parapet is a separate opinion, not the selected three-plus-one arrangement. Rambam 4:3, Josephus, War 5.5.6
Middot also mentions actual memorial crowns in connection with golden chains hanging from the Ulam roof beams. These are distinct from the roof perimeter. Both chains and illustrative crown forms are now visible in the porch. Their exact shapes are not supplied by the text. The five porch beams and the golden vine are treated separately. Middot 3:7–8
Lishkas HaGazis was the place where the Great Sanhedrin judged the priesthood. It is now a named, roofed room with an entrance from the courtyard, a reading table and illustrative council seating. The individual seats are a visual furnishing, not a counted depiction of all members of the Great Sanhedrin. The institution’s number and seating arrangement must not be inferred from that furniture. Middot 5:4
The downloaded text of Middot places the Hewn Stone, Golah and Wood chambers on the south. Rambam’s chapter five places that group on the north. This is a material textual/layout difference. The new courtyard room arrangement follows the cited Middot text. Exact room footprints, spacing, doorways and their relationship to sacred and non-sacred portions are still schematic. They should not be used to infer the legal boundaries within Lishkas HaGazis. Middot 5:3–4, Rambam chapter 5
The model provides walk-in entrances and individual destination cards for all six named chambers in Middot 5:3–4. The southern rooms are Hewn Stone, Golah and Wood; the northern rooms are Salt, Parvah and Washing. Room sizes are interpretive. The source establishes their names and functions without supplying every length, height and doorway needed to construct this scene. Middot 5:3–4
The Golah chamber has a cistern and drawing wheel, reflecting its water-supply function. The Salt chamber contains illustrative storage vessels. The Parvah chamber has a preparation table and a rooftop immersion pool. The Washing chamber has washing basins. Its source-described ascent to the Parvah roof is not yet implemented. The Wood chamber’s identification is disputed within the Mishnah itself: Rabbi Eliezer ben Jacob reports that he forgot its purpose, while Abba Shaul associates it with the High Priest. Consequently its title does not justify filling it with altar logs as though that use were certain.
Beis HaMoked is represented as a vaulted hall with sleeping ledges, a hearth and four labeled subsidiary areas. Middot identifies chambers for lambs and showbread, storage of defiled altar stones, and descent to immersion. The present compartments are schematic: the full partition system, underground route, holy/non-holy boundary and actual immersion chamber still require construction. The southwest/southeast/northeast/northwest labels follow the source’s orientation. Middot 1:6–9
Two additional service rooms sit beside Nicanor’s Gate: Pinchas’s vestment chamber and the griddle-cake makers’ chamber. They can be entered from the courtyard and selected in the destination menu. The source gives the paired relationship, but the assignment to either side and their room dimensions are illustrative. Middot 1:4
The four open chambers are identified by their functions: Nazirites in the southeast, wood inspection in the northeast, purification in the northwest, and oil/wine storage in the southwest according to Abba Shaul. Unlike the sanctuary, these chambers should not simply receive roofs: Middot explicitly describes them as unroofed. The model preserves that distinction. Interior service equipment is not yet complete. Middot 2:5
The fifteen steps and later balcony are also described in that passage. The existing fifteen-step flight remains straight, although the text describes a curved form. A complete gallery, support system and correctly curved stairs require a further architectural correction rather than decorative signs alone.
North of the altar are twenty-four rings, shown in six rows of four. Middot preserves an alternative arrangement of four rows of six. The slaughter area contains eight low pillars with cedar blocks, three rows of iron hooks per pillar, and marble tables. These fixtures are now visible. The count of pillars, ring total and three hook tiers are sourced; pillar dimensions, exact hook shapes and table spacing remain interpreted. The scene shows the equipment without animals or graphic sacrificial imagery. Middot 3:5, Tamid 3:5
Middot 5:2 also records cross-courtyard distances between the altar, rings, tables, pillars and wall. Those distances need reconciliation with the still-provisional lateral position of the altar and ramp. The fixtures should therefore be read as a functional reconstruction with explicit counts, not a finished north–south survey. Middot 5:2
The large wood arrangement is shown toward the east and a smaller arrangement near the southwest. Tamid describes the main arrangement and the second arrangement supplying coals for the incense service. It also discusses the kinds of wood used. The model now includes stacked logs, glowing coals, moving flames and flickering illumination. Flame height, log dimensions, wood species appearance and timing are artistic. This is not yet a full simulation of the offerings or the varying number of arrangements described in other discussions. Tamid 2:3–5
The altar’s structural profile still needs its foundation exceptions, exact ledge treatment and ramp gap corrected. Existing traversal is preserved, but it should not be treated as proof that those architectural details are settled.
A stone with three steps stands before the menorah. Tamid describes the priest preparing the lamps from it and leaving the service vessel on the second step. Rambam likewise records the three-step stone and its oil tools. The steps and a service jug are now present and can be approached in first person. Step rise and tread dimensions are illustrative because these cited passages do not supply a complete dimensional specification. Tamid 3:9, Rambam 3:10
Seven small animated flames make the lamp positions legible. This is a display state, not a simulation of the precise morning lamp-preparation sequence. Menorah branch form, ornament and orientation remain an identified interpretation. Table fittings, showbread supports, incense tools and many minor vessels are not yet modeled in full.
Middot describes thirty-eight cells: fifteen on each side and eight at the west. Three-level cell volumes have been added with floors, partitions and some doorway openings. Their count follows the text; bay lengths, storey heights and connections are schematic. This does not yet supply the complete northern ascent, wraparound access route, upper-room entry or maintenance openings into the Holy of Holies. Middot 4:3–5
The surrounding world now has a visible sun, clouded sky, warm daylight, distant hills, olive groves and a dense collection of courtyard houses and terraces. The city serves as an artistic period setting rather than a street-by-street archaeological claim. Josephus’s description of a city divided by hills and valleys supports the general decision to avoid a flat empty horizon, but it does not establish the generated house positions or hill profiles. No modern religious monuments are used as substitutes for the ancient skyline. Josephus, War 5.4
The priestly court still lacks its source-described two-and-a-half-amah rise, and this leaves the sanctuary’s world elevation too low in the present coordinate system. The height of the sanctuary relative to its own foundation remains separately accounted for. This must be corrected as a connected floor-and-stair system. Rambam 6:1–5
Other incomplete elements include the full gate and guardroom plan, underground immersion routes, the upper-storey ascent, exact sacred boundaries, curved Women’s Court steps, porch landing pattern, detailed vessel fittings, altar geometry exceptions, and many interior furnishings. Building them faithfully requires resolving interpretations rather than presenting invented measurements as primary-source facts.
The sanctuary now has gold wall facing and four open golden door leaves, following Middot 4:1. Palm and flower reliefs and woven curtain patterns are interpretive designs, not recovered artwork. Figurative cherub relief remains unmodeled. The triangular iron roof crest is a reconstructed profile within the one-amah height described by Rambam 4:3.
The altar base is 32 × 32 amos within the 187 × 135 Azarah, about 4.06% of its full area. The ramp was corrected from 34 to 32 amos long, by 16 wide. Its combined projection with the altar is 62 amos. Exact lateral placement, tier joins and north-side fixture spacing still require reconciliation. No Ark is shown because this is the Second Temple.
1. Mishnah Middot, chapters 1–5. Original text and translations.
2. Mishnah Tamid, especially 2:3–5, 3:5 and 3:9. Original text and translations.
3. Mishnah Yoma 5:1–2. Original text and translations.
4. Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Hilchos Beis HaBechirah, chapters 3–6. Original text and translations.
5. Bartenura on Mishnah Middot, particularly 4:6. Commentary.
6. Flavius Josephus, Jewish War, book 5, chapters 4–5; William Whiston translation, University of Chicago reproduction. Text.
The study library additionally retains Mishnah Menachot and Bavli Yoma and Menachot for further vessel and service research. Downloading a book is not a claim that all its passages have already been reconciled with the model.