A Mysterious Giant Column in Jerusalem

As a West Jerusalem complex was being built in 1871, the excavation team discovered a giant pillar/column. The column is about 39 feet long (12 meters) and 6 feet (1.75 meters) in diameter, it weighs about 60 tons (132,277 pounds). The quarrying of the column was never completed because the column cracked as it was being made. The original quarrymen left it in the quarry to be found nearly 2,000 years later.

Because of its size the column was dubbed “Og’s finger” after the giant king of Bashan:

“For only Og king of Bashan remained of the remnant of giants; behold, his bedstead was a bedstead of iron; is it not in Rabbath of the children of Ammon? nine cubits [about 13 feet/4 meters] was the length thereof, and four cubits [about 6 feet/1.8 meters] the breadth of it, after the cubit of a man.” Deuteronomy 3:11.

There are two theories for the date and purpose of the column.

1. The column dates to the early Roman period (1st century BC) and was intended for the Temple being reconstructed by King Herod.
2. The column dates to the Byzantine Emperor Justinian (543 AD) and was intended for the Nea Church (Church of the Mother of God), which was destroyed by the Persians in 614 AD.

Og’s finger column is off the beaten tourist path in West Jerusalem. It is located across the street from the entrance to the Holy Trinity Cathedral, the main Russian Orthodox cathedral in Israel, in the Russian Compound neighborhood of Jerusalem.