The building identified as the Monastery of the Virgins was unearthed in Area XV of Mazar's excavations of the Ophel on behalf of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Carried out between 1968 and 1977, the excavations revealed that a crowded residential neighbourhood stood in the area to the immediate south of the Temple Mount enclosure during Jerusalem's Byzantine Period. from the Triple Huldah Gate, at the foot of the Temple Mount's southern wall, the excavators revealed a structure whose plan resembled a typical Byzantine courtyard house, with wings arranged around a central courtyard. Built on top in the remains of a large Second Temple Period building and an older burial cave, the house featured three stories of which the basement and ground floor were well preserved. The excavation of the building yielded earlier Iron Age II shards, including a LMLK seal and the head of a fertility figurine. However, as a result of the building's excellent state of preservation digging beneath its floors was abandoned in order to allow its display to the public.