The Second Temple (Second House of the Sanctum), also known in its later years as Herod’s Temple, was the reconstructed Jewish holy temple that stood on the Temple Mount in the city of Jerusalem between c. 516 BCE and 70 CE. It replaced the First Temple (built at the same location during Solomon’s reign over the United Kingdom of Israel) that had been destroyed in 587 BCE by the Neo-Babylonian Empire during its conquest of the Kingdom of Judah; the fallen Jewish kingdom was subsequently annexed as a Babylonian province and part of its populace was held captive in Babylon. Construction on the Second Temple began some time after the conquest of Babylon by the Achaemenid Persian Empire, following a proclamation by the Persian king Cyrus the Great that enabled the Jewish return to Zion. The completion of the Second Temple in the new Achaemenid province of Yehud marked the beginning of the Second Temple period in Jewish history.

According to the Bible, the Second Temple was originally a rather modest structure constructed by a number of Jewish returnees to the Levant from Babylon under the Achaemenid-appointed governor Zerubbabel. However, during the reign of Herod the Great over the Herodian Kingdom of Judea, it was completely refurbished and the original structure was totally overhauled into the large edifices and façades that are more recognized in modern recreated models.

The Second Temple stood for approximately 585 years before its destruction in 70 CE by the Roman Empire as retaliation for an ongoing Jewish revolt.

Destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE

After the destruction of the First Temple in Jerusalem by the Babylonians in 586 BCE, the Jews of the Kingdom of Judea went into exile. In 538 BCE during the reign of Cyrus the Great, the Jews returned to Jerusalem and were able to build the Second Temple on the site of the original one that had been destroyed. Secular accounts place the completion of the Second Temple in approximately 516 BCE but some Jewish sources date the completion much later in 350 BCE. Herod the Great rebuilt the Temple in 20-18 BCE. The Jews led a revolt and occupied Jerusalem in 66 CE initiating the first Roman-Jewish war. In 70 CE the Romans reclaimed Jerusalem and destroyed the Second Temple with only a portion of the western wall remaining (though recent archeological discoveries date portions of the wall to later periods). The Western Wall remains a sacred site for Jews.