Mary in the Temple (II)

Eighty-two young girls were weaving the veil of the Temple Rabbinical literature confirms that many young girls lived in the Temple and wove the veil. The Jerusalem Talmud (or Palestinian Talmud) furnishes interesting precisions on the subject: "The veil of the Temple was a palm-length in width. It was woven with seventy-two smooth stitches each made of twenty-four threads. The length was of forty cubits and the width of twenty cubits. Eighty-two young girls wove it. Two veils were made each year and three hundred priests were needed to carry it to the pool" (Mishna Sheqalim 8, 5). The Talmud also says that when the Temple was burnt in 70 A.D. ? "the virgins who were weaving threw themselves in the flames" rather than let themselves fall into the hands of the enemy (Pesiqta Rabbati 26, 6), and that they lived in the three-storey building inside the Temple area.