The Acra (also spelled Akra, from Ancient Greek: Ἄκρα, Hebrew: חקרא ,חקרה Ḥaqra(h)), with the meaning of "stronghold" (see under "Etymology"), was a place in Jerusalem thought to have had a fortified compound built by Antiochus Epiphanes, ruler of the Seleucid Empire, following his sack of the city in 168 BCE.

[10] Here are the events leading up to the Maccabean Revolt in which the Acra played an important role, based again mainly on Josephus' Antiquities of the Jews and the First and Second Book of Maccabees.

Following Alexander the Great's death in 323 BCE, Coele-Syria was contested between the Ptolemaic Kingdom in Egypt, and the Seleucid Empire based in Syria and Mesopotamia.

Shortly afterward, Epiphanes was petitioned by Jason for appointment to the position of High Priest of Israel—an office occupied by his brother Onias III.

Jason, himself thoroughly Hellenized, furthermore promised to increase the tribute paid by the city and to establish within it the infrastructure of a Greek polis, including a gymnasium and an ephebion.

His intent to unify the Seleucid and Ptolemaic kingdoms alarmed the rapidly expanding Roman state, which demanded that he withdraw his forces from Egypt.

Although the attack was repulsed, when word of the fighting reached Antiochus in Egypt, he suspected his Judean subjects of exploiting his setback as an opportunity to revolt.

[21][22][23] Reversing his father's policy, Antiochus IV issued decrees outlawing traditional Jewish rites and persecuting observant Jews.

It became an ambush against the sanctuary, an evil adversary of Israel continually.The name Acra derived from the Greek acropolis and signified a lofty fortified place overlooking a town.

[33] Jonathan had already assembled the manpower required for the task when he was forced to confront the invading army of Seleucid general Diodotus Tryphon at Beth Shan (Scythopolis).

According to Josephus, Simon razed the Acra after ousting its inhabitants, and then quarried the hill on which it had stood to render it lower than the temple, purge the city of its evil memory and deny it to any future occupier of Jerusalem.

[48] The location of the original fortified structure known as Acra is important for understanding how events unfolded in Jerusalem during the struggle between Maccabean and Seleucid forces.

[9] These are, from north to south, the area later covered by the Herodian extension of the Temple esplanade; the Ophel; and the entire southeast hill known as the City of David, with a fortress at its northern end.

The top of the Mount is approximately 30 metres (98 ft) above the ground level at the southern retaining wall of the later Herodian-era expansion of the Temple enclosure.

[29] Since 1841, when Edward Robinson proposed the area near the Church of the Holy Sepulchre as the site of the Acra, at least nine different locations in and around the Old City of Jerusalem have been put forward.

This account attests to the persistence of the name "Acra" in this part of Jerusalem many years after Hellenistic rule ended and its citadels had been overthrown, and it can also be seen as referring not to a distinct building but rather to an entire region of the city.

[33] This is also supported by archaeological evidence, including Rhodian amphorae handles and 18 box graves found on the eastern slope of the City of David.

The latter are dated to the early 2nd century CE, and are uncharacteristic of Second Temple era Jewish burial practices, yet similar to other known Hellenistic graveyards such as the one in Acre (Ptolemais).

[64][69][70] Even if the name "Acra" were applied to an entire Hellenistic quarter rather than to just a fortress, it is likely that a citadel would have stood within that compound to billet the Macedonian garrison which occupied it.

[29] Thus, whether a part of a larger enclave or independent of its surroundings, a citadel probably did stand at the northern tip of the City of David just south of the Temple Mount.

Although the exact dating of this construction in uncertain, Tsafrir believes it is a remnant of the Acra's foundations which were later incorporated into Herod the Great's extension of the Temple platform.

These include a 700,000-imperial-gallon (3,200,000 L; 840,000 US gal) cistern shaped like an E, the northern edge of which is adjacent to the proposed southern line of the Temple Mount precinct before its Herodian expansion.

Benjamin Mazar's 1968 and 1978 excavations of the Ophel, the area adjoining the southern portion of the platform, have unearthed the foundations of a massive structure and a large cistern, both possibly dating to the Hellenistic period.

The Hasmonean constructions were, in turn, flattened to create a public square fronting the main gates to the Temple platform during the Herodian renovations.

[78] While excavating the Givati parking lot south-west of the Temple Mount and north-west of the City of David, the archaeologists Doron Ben-Ami, Yana Tchekhanovets and Salome Cohen claimed that a complex of rooms and fortified walls they had unearthed was to be identified with the Acra mentioned in literary sources.

Bronze arrowheads, lead sling-stones and ballista stones were unearthed at the site, stamped with a trident, the emblem of Antiochus IV Epiphanes.

Antiquities of the Jews 12:253 may be translated to give the sense that the "impious or wicked" had "remained" rather than "dwelt" in the citadel, which could be taken to mean that the Acra had been standing before the revolt and that only the Macedonian garrison was new.

As Josephus' Roman Jerusalem had already expanded to the higher western hill, "a citadel in the lower city" could have referred to anything located east of the Tyropoeon Valley, including the Antonia which stood north of the Temple and did indeed rise above and dominate it.

Unlike its predecessor and successor citadels, it was not meant as a defence against external threat, but rather to oversee the inhabited Jewish parts of the city, a role incompatible with a proposed northern location.

[83] Additional evidence for the existence of the Acra may come from the chance discovery, published by Shimon Appelbaum [he], of a fragmentary Greek inscription in the Old City of Jerusalem.