Jerusalem · Sukkot, first day, 15 Tishrei · c. 50 CE
Dawn of the first day of Sukkot. Booths on every roof; pilgrims from every land.
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Who is who
The day
Sukkot is one of the three pilgrimage festivals: the city overflows with pilgrims from Judea, Galilee and the diaspora, and every roof carries a booth. On the first day the Temple offered the daily Tamid with the water libation drawn from Siloam, set willow branches beside the altar and circled it with the lulav, sang the Hallel while every hand waved its lulav, and offered the Musaf of thirteen bulls, two rams, fourteen lambs and a goat. At nightfall the Court of Women blazed with four golden candelabra for Simchat Beit HaShoeva, the rejoicing of the water-drawing. Roman soldiers stood on the portico roofs, as Josephus says they did at every festival.
Reconstruction follows Mishnah Sukkah and Middot, Josephus and the archaeology of the Herodian platform; details are stylised.