The ground upon which Jerusalem
stands is formed by a plateau extending
southward from the Palestinian mountain range,
and cut by valleys into several heights. The culmination of the range or watershed runs west of
the city, and the surface on which the city is built
slopes to the east and south, and on the south and
southeast sinks abruptly into deep valleys. The
watershed northwest and north of the city rises to
a height of 2,675 feet above the Mediterranean; the
lowest place in modern Jerusalem is 2,360 feet in
elevation; while the whole city is situated at a
lower elevation than the country round about. The
heights about the city are in part still known by
their old names. That to the east is the Mount of
Olives (
). Looking
from the city, it is seen to have four summits, of
which the second from the north (
),
from twenty to forty feet lower, on which
are several consecrated buildings, passes in common
speech as the Mount of Olives. The most southern
peak (
; cf.
). The hill to the west
corresponds probably to the hill Gareb of Jer.
xxxi. 39 rising to the height of 2,555 feet; that to
the south, called Goah in Jer, xxxi, 39 (2,545 feet
high), is the modern
, called by Europeans
the Hill of Evil Counsel, on the basis of John xi.
47-53. The elevation north of the city is called
Skopos by Josephus (
. XI., viii. 5).
The principal valley is that of the Kidron, rising
north of the city, bending east and then south, and
dividing the city from the Mount of Olives, all the
time deepening rapidly. At present, parts of this
valley bear different names. Of tributary valleys
may be mentioned one which in early times emptied
opposite the Garden of Gethsemane of the Latins
immediately below the Golden Gate of the present
east wall of the Harem al-Sharif; it is now practically
filled up. Formerly it was formed of two
branches which served to divide the city , as is
shown by the researches of Warren and Wilson.
Another tributary valley used to empty immediately
north of the Virgin's Fount, opposite the upper
part of the village of Silwan, but is now completely
filled. A third empties below the Pool of Siloam,
opposite the lower part of the village of Silwan,
and rises in two hollows above the Damascus Gate.
It runs first southeast, then south and then again
southeast, being joined about the middle of its
course by a valley coming from the west. Both
this and the valley which joins it are now filled up,
but their importance for the old city must have
been great. The name as given by Josephus (
,
V., iv. 1) is the Tyropœon valley. A fourth tributary
valley empties into the Kidron still farther
south than the Tyropœon. It begins in the watershed
west of the present Jaffa Gate, runs south and
then east till it joins the Kidron opposite the southern
end of Silwan, falling a distance of 650 feet in
its course. It has different names for different
parts, but is in general known as the valley of
Hinnom (
and often; cf. Gehenna). It
is remarkable that Eusebius and Jerome place the
valley of Hinnom to the east of Jerusalem, but they
were probably influenced by
. In
the eighteenth century it became the erroneous
fashion to call the upper and middle part of this
valley the Gihon.
The preceding description
shows that the drainage of the region is from north
to south or from northwest to southeast. While
the watershed is at an elevation of 2,675 feet, the
union of the Kidron and Hinnom valleys is only
2,065 feet above the Mediterranean; there is therefore
no deadwater in the brooks which in the
rainy season flow through these valleys. Part of
the drainage is subterranean. The hill country of
Palestine is poor in water, and such expressions as
"the brook Kidron" may convey a false impression
if it is not recalled that "brook" means no more
than the Arabic "wadi," a natural channel of
drainage for the flow of the rainy season, dry the
rest of the year except near a spring. In the upper
and lower parts the valleys are tilled; between the
city and the Mount of Olives the floor of the valley
is denuded of soil. In the Kidron water flows only
during exceptional rainfall or when there is a quick
melting of a heavy snowfall. A shallow brook runs
even yet in the Tyropœon after long-continued rains,
forming a pool called the Birkat al-Hamra. In
the Hinnom valley a small ditch between the garden
plats suffices to carry off the drainage. The region
is poor in springs, the Old Testament naming only
three, Gihon, En-rogel, and the Dragon's Well. The
Gihon was in the Kidron valley
(
). These data
serve to identify it with the only spring which is
found to-day in the Kidron valley near Jerusalem
and feeds the pool of Siloam through the Siloam
conduit. It is known now as the Virgin's Fount
and the Fountain of Steps, the second name due
to the fact that the water is reached by a stone
stairway. The spring is covered by an arch to
protect it from d�bris, and lies in a deep hollow
some seventy-five feet lower than the heaps of
d�bris round about. It is intermittent, but rather
irregularly so; in winter it may flow three or four
times a day, in summer once or twice, in autumn
at most once. This peculiarity is probably to be explained
by the fact that the spring has two sources
in the hill, one constant and one variable, the latter
intermittent and fed from below. Doubtless the
action of this spring influenced the prophetic representations
in
,
which went upon the supposition that there
were great chambers of water in the interior of the
mountain. Josephus calls the water of this spring
sweet; at present it is brackish. The second spring,
En-rogel (
),
was on the boundary
between Judah and Benjamin, and at some distance
from the city (
. VII., xiv. 4); therefore it is to be sought
near the union of the valley of Hinnom with that
of Kidron. There is now no spring in the region,
but there is a well, called by the Arabs Job's Well,
by Jews Joab's Well, and by Christians Nehemiah's
Well, having a depth of 122 feet, partly walled
and partly sunk in the rock. In very wet seasons
it fills up and drains off a part of its water, a circumstance
regarded by the inhabitants as presaging
a fruitful season. From this overflow it probably
got its name as a spring, though in earlier times,
when the country was wooded, its overflow may
have been constant and so justified the name of
spring. About a third of a mile south and on the
west side of the valley is a spring which flows during
the rainy season, and in early times may have been
constant. A third spring, the Dragon's Well, appears
to be mentioned in
(LXX, "Spring
of Figs"), as approached from the valley gate,
which was probably at the southwest corner of the
old city. It should therefore lie in the lower Hinnom
valley or in the Kidron valley; but no spring
or well besides those already mentioned is now known.
The old city was built
upon the naked rock. The situation is altogether
unfavorable to the formation of vegetable soil and
to the retention of any which may be artificially
created, since the heavy rainfall of winter washes
it into the crevices of the rocks or sweeps it into
the valleys. Disintegration of the rock produces a
rich loamy soil which adheres well to the rocky
substratum where the lie of the land permits it.
The rock is a crystalline chalk of the middle cretaceous period, and of dark gray color. Varieties
distinguished at the present are: a pure hippuritic
chalkstone, granular, not hard, esteemed for building,
not blemished by cracks, when quarried generally pure white, and hardening with exposure
to the atmosphere; a second variety, of three kinds,
either gray or marked with red and gray veins and
not found in such large masses as the first variety;
a variety which laminates and does not break in
the fire; a fourth variety, so soft as to receive and
retain the imprint of the fingers, sometimes, however, hard and worked with the saw, reddened often
through infiltration of iron, and generally used for
the little sarcophagi so numerous in the neighborhood.
The usual rainy season is from
October to May, rarely September to June, while
the average rainfall for the year is about twenty-three
inches, and the southwest and west winds
carry the rain clouds. Snow may fall from December
to March, rarely in April, though it does not
often lie long. The temperature ranges from 25� to
102� Fahrenheit, with high average for July of 77�
and for January of 43�. Ice may form at night in
January, but melts during the day except in shady
spots. The atmospheric humidity ranges widely.
The prevailing winds are from the northwest,
though the radiation of the land in summer often
produces a sea breeze from the Mediterranean which
lasts well through the night and brings much moisture.
East winds blow in autumn, winter, and
spring, rarely in summer. The sirocco blows from
the southwest. The months in which sickness prevails are May to October. The preceding data are
the result of observations taken during the second
half of the nineteenth century, and the question
has been raised whether the climate is the same as
it was in early times (see P
). Here it need
be said only that great changes are improbable;
such changes as may have taken place are most
likely in the direction of greater contrast of temperature
and of reduced rainfall. But Jerusalem
must always have been a city not abundantly supplied
with water, as is proved by the many devices
for conserving the rainfall.
It is clear that the name
Jerusalem was not given by the Israelites, since it
appears c. 1400
,
which corresponds consonantally with
the Hebrew form of the name, though
the vocalization of the last syllable is
different in the Old Testament but not in the Aramaic
or Septuagint. The form
is
Massoretic. The legend of the founding of the city
reported by Josephus (
, i. 14 sqq.) and Plutarch
(
, xxxi.) goes back to Manetho,
who attributes the building of the city to the Hyksos
when they left Egypt. But the legend unites the
Hyksos and the Hebrews in a manner which prevents
giving credit to the story. The earliest mention
is that of the Amarna Tablets ut sup., in which
Ebed-Hiba appears as tributary to the Pharaoh,
while the correspondence suggests that the ruler
of Jerusalem was charged with oversight of the
princelings of southern Syria (cf. the representation
in
Judges i. 5-7 of Adoni-bezek with his seventy
subject kings). The Israelitic accounts dealing
with the time c. 1020 B.C. make the Jebusites masters of Jerusalem and the immediate surroundings,
and Zion the stronghold (II Sam. v. 7). Until the
second half of the nineteenth century Zion and the
City of David were located between the valleys of
Hinnom and the Tyropœon at the southwest corner
of the city. At present scholars agree that Zion
was applied to the eastern part of the city and that
the southeastern hill corresponds to the fortress of
Jebus. The "city of David" is not to be confused
with "Jerusalem," since it formed only a part of
the greater whole (cf. II Kings xiv. 20). The city of
David was situated on lower ground than the temple
and the palace of Solomon (II Sam. xxiv. 18;
I Kings viii. 1-4), and Solomon's palace lay lower
than the temple (II Kings xi. 19), from which it
was separated only by a wall (Ezek. xliii. 8). The
location of the temple, it is agreed, was on the site
of the present Mosque of Omar whence the directions implied in the foregoing data can lead one only
to the southeastern hill between the Kidron and
the Tyropœon. This conclusion is fully corroborated by the indications in Neh. iii. 15-26, xii. 31-39
compared with ii. 13-14. According to II Sam. v. 6
the fortress of Zion was difficult of access, which
corresponds with the situation to the east and the
south of the southeastern corner of Jerusalem, and
it must have been protected to the west by the
Tyropœon before the latter was filled with d�bris.
Similarly on the north a ravine extended, mentioned
above as one of the tributary valleys of the
Kidron. Consequently at that early time the fortress
was entirely isolated by ravines, while the
boundaries suggested probably marked out the city
of the Jebusites, placed on the lowest of the eminences
in the neighborhood. The Jerusalem of the
Amarna Tablets has been placed westward of Jebus
and on the southwest hill of the modern city.
2. Davidic and Solomonic Jerusalem.
With the capture of the Jebusite fortress Jerusalem
fell into David's hands, and this may have been
while he was still king of Hebron. He
was thus placed in contact with the
northern tribes and in command of the
roads, while the stronghold became
the capital of his kingdom, a place be
longing neither to Judah nor to the
northern tribes, and therefore neutral. But because
of David's relationship to Judah, it is sometimes
ascribed to Judah, while elsewhere it is called Benjamin's
territory because of its situation. David
did not exterminate the Jebusites, but left them life
and property (II Sam. xxiv. 18); he forced them,
however, to evacuate Zion, whence they went to
the southwest elevation, while he and his following
occupied "the city of David." The old fortress was
completely transformed, being built up by David,
and a palace erected there (II Sam. v. 9, 11; cf.
Neh. xii. 37) upon one of the western levels of the
hill, while the tombs were hewn out still lower;
the fortification was completed by walls and towers,
the remains of which have been traced. In this
part of the city was the tabernacle-sanctuary
(II Sam. vi. 17),
and here were the residences for the
people of the court, as well as a great number of
cisterns for water supply. Solomon extended the
building toward the north and built the Millo for
protection, though as yet the exact location of this
defensive work is not determined and the same is
true as to its exact character--whether it was a
wall or a tower. Solomon's palace and temple were
to the north and on higher ground, the temple on
Moriah and the palace on Ophell, the latter surrounded
by defensive walls, probably pierced with
great gates on the south, where were the principal
approaches. The arrangement included three parts,
a greater court with an inner court containing the
temple, and a second or middle court
(I Kings vii. 8, 12;
II Kings xx. 4), the temple thus being
the farthest north, while these separate parts were
probably upon different levels. In the great court
to the south were the house of Lebanon, the hall
of pillars, and the throne hall. The middle court
contained Solomon's palace and the palace of his
Egyptian queen. To Solomon is ascribed the building
of the wall which surrounded Jerusalem
(I Kings iii. 1 ix. 15).
The question of the extent of
the city in those times and therefore of the extent
and course of this wall is much debated. It must be
borne in mind that a distinction was made between
the "city of David" and Jerusalem, and by the
latter was meant the city on the southwest hill,
which must have been the part so protected by
Solomon's wall, the course of which Josephus claims
to give (War, V., iv. 2). Remains of a wall which
may have been. the northern part of Josephus's wall
have been discovered south of David Street, viz.,
the so-called Wilson's arch; but the latter can
hardly be ascribed to the time of Solomon. Investigations
respecting the course of Solomon's wall
have been carried on by the English engineer, H.
Maudsley, and the American, F. J. Bliss, during
which several gates have been discovered as well as
the direction of the fortification, but whether these
belonged to the erection of Solomon or to later times
is not fully determined. The valley gate was probably
at the southwest corner of the old city, the
dung gate on the south, and the fountain gate to
the east by the Tyropœon valley (formerly called
the gate between the two walls, Jer. xxxix. 4).
3. From Solomon to the Exile.
The successors of Solomon, according to the Old
Testament, often added to the fortifications of the
city, and probably all the additions
made are not mentioned in the records.
Of special importance is the report that
Hezekiah built "the other wall"
(II Chron, xxxii. 5), i.e., one outside what
had been till then the city limits, called
by Josephus the second wall (War, V., iv. 2). A
good basis for tracing this wall is found in
Neh. iii.
(cf. xii. 31, 37-40), and some remains have been discovered
which are with good reason identified with
the wall of Nehemiah. These remains are to the
north of the so-called David's Tower, under the
foundation of the German Evangelical Church, and
still farther near the northwest corner of the Haram
al-Sharif. This wall was pierced by two gates,
called the old gate and the fish gate
(Neh. iii. 6, xii. 39);
the first was probably near the quarter of
the Holy Sepulcher corner of the city, by the Prussian
Hospice of St. John; the fish gate must have
led to the Tyropœon. From
Zeph. i. 10 it may be
deduced that in this quarter or new city the Phenician
traders had their shops. The towers of
Hananeel and Hammeah
(Jer. xxxi. 38;
Neh. iii. 1)
are usually located on the site of the later Antonia,
and not far to the east must have been the sheep
gate (Neh. iii. 1), perhaps identical with the gate
of Benjamin (Jer. vii. 13). A short distance
east of the sheep gate the wall bent southward to
follow the bank of the Kidron; the complete course
of the wall is not yet made out, but that it changed
direction several times is clear from
Neh. iii. 19-20, 24-25,
while iii. 26 compared with
xii. 37 leaves
doubtful the location of the water gate giving toward
the east. Other gates mentioned are the middle
gate (Jer. xxxix. 3),
the gate of potsherds (Jer. xix. 2),
the first gate of Zech. xiv. 10 near the corner
gate, the gate of the guard (II Kings xi. 19,
belonging to Solomon's palace), and the horse gate
(Neh. iii. 28), the locations of which have not been
found. The residents continued to make provision
for water supply by hewing or constructing cisterns
in which to collect rain-water. Neh. iii. 16
mentions an artificial pool in the city of David, called
"the pool that was made," probably to distinguish
it from the natural pools theretofore used. It is
difficult to locate all the cisterns or pools mentioned
in the Old Testament. The upper pool of
Isa. xxxvi. 2 seems to have been to the north or
northwest of the old city, perhaps therefore the
Mamilla pool west of the Gaza gate or the pool of
Hezekiah; but many have distinguished the former
as the upper pool and the latter as the lower pool
(Isa. xxii. 9). The reservoir between the two
walls of Isa. xxii. 11
is to be sought in the Tyropœon
valley between the city of David and Jerusalem;
the pool of Shelah of Neh. iii. 15 is identified
by many with that of Siloam. The inhabitants
sought in three ways to make available the waters
of the Gihon spring; an approach through the
rock of the hill, a channel from the foot of the
hill southward in the neighborhood of the water
gate, and a tunnel conducting the water into the
city. The first was discovered by Charles Warren
in 1867-68; the second, in part, by Conrad von
Schick in 1886 and 1890, found to be partly a covered
channel, partly a tunnel; the third is the
famous Siloam tunnel (in which is the Siloam inscription,
q.v.), hewn not in a straight line, but first
leading west from the spring, then south, and finally
west again into the king's pool of Neh. ii. 14. If it
be right to attribute this tunnel to Hezekiah, the
other means of leading the water into the city belong
to an earlier age, the first perhaps going back to the
time of David or of the Jebusites. Signs indicate
that during the Davidic dynasty numerous attempts
were made to supply the city with water from a
distance. To the south of Bethlehem is a group of
waterworks which divide into three parts. To the
west of the little village of Artas, three hours south
of Jerusalem, are three great pools called the pools
of Solomon, fed partly by springs in the neighborhood,
partly by two canals, the one leading from
the Wadi al-Biyar emptying into the upper pool,
the other from the Wadi al-'Arrub emptying into
the middle pool. The connection with Jerusalem
was by two channels, an upper and a lower, of
which the upper has a remarkable peculiarity. At
first an ordinary canal, at the grave of Rachel it
becomes a line of piping, which sinks and then
rises farther on, built of stones bored into hollow
cylinders fitting closely together and laid in a bed
of masonry. This breaks off north of the tomb of
Rachel, and from there only indistinct traces are
discoverable. This must be regarded as ancient,
possibly Solomonic or Davidic; the date of the lower
channel is about that of Herod the Great. Besides
these two conduits, traces of a third have been
found.
4. From the Exile to Herod.
The capture of Jerusalem by Nebuchadrezzar,
587-586 B.C., resulted in the burning of the temple,
the royal palace, and the larger dwellings
of the city; the encircling wall
was also thrown down. The remnant
of inhabitants left by the conqueror in
the city was too poor and dispirited to
think of rebuilding. Gedaliah had his residence in
Mizpah, which indicates the unfitness of Jerusalem
as a capital. From
Haggai (i. 4)
is first heard the
story of rebuilding in the year 519 B.C. and of
the rebuilding of the temple 519-15 B.C., though the
stress of circumstances continued to be felt. In
445 B.C. Nehemiah came with full powers from
Artaxerxes I., rebuilt the wall and erected its gates
in fifty-two days (Neh. iii., xii. 27-43), finishing
with a festival. The most of the repairs had to be
made on the north, east, and south, while mention
is made of the house of the mighty men, the great
tower of the upper palace, and David's palace
(Neh. iii. 16, 25, xii. 37) as though still standing.
The priests were masters of the temple and its
vicinity, while some dwelt in the neighborhood of
the old Davidic residence (Neh. iii. 20 sqq.). From
Neh. xi. 4-19 it may be gathered that the population when Nehemiah came was about 10,000, a
small number for so large a space (Neh. vii. 4).
But during the next two centuries the city must
have grown greatly in spite of the damage it suffered
from Persians and Egyptians. In 198 B.C.
it came into the power of the Seleucid�. It is after
this that mention is made of a fortress inside the
city held by a foreign force and called the Akra (or
the acropolis). It is related in I Macc. i. 33-37 that
the officers of Antiochus IV. fortified the city of
David with a strong wall, and that this became a
menace to the sanctuary. In thus distinguishing
the city of David from the rest of the city, and both
of these from the temple hill, the author of Maccabees
follows Old-Testament usage. The supposition
that the Akra hill overlooked the temple contradicts
all testimony regarding the relative levels.
The importance of David's city was gradually lessened
by means of the temple hill. The high priest
Simon (Ecclus. 1. 1)
and later the Hasmonean Judas
(I Macc. iv. 60) fortified the temple, and Jonathan
renewed the protection after Antiochus Eupator
had destroyed it. Thus Zion became a fortress inside
the unwalled city. The encircling wall of
the city was restored by the Hasmoneans several
times, and they also cut off the Akra by a high
wall to shut out the garrison from the market.
Another work of this period was the palace of the
Hasmoneans, west of the temple and on higher
ground, probably on the edge of the southwest hill,
the upper city of Josephus (Ant. XIV., i. 2). It
came later into the possession of the Herods, and
was occupied by Agrippa II. when he stayed in
Jerusalem. Near it, but lower in the Tyropœon
valley, was the Xystos, either a great hall or an
open place, while across on the east side of the
valley was the council-house of the Sanhedrin and
near it the hall of records. Toward the end of this
period belongs probably the description of Jerusalem
found in the letter of Aristeas, in all likelihood
based on Hecataios of Abdera.
5. From Herod to the Destruction, 70 A.D.
For the next period Josephus is the authority,
and he distinguishes between the upper city, or the
upper market, the lower city, the temple
or the temple hill, the proasteion,
and the new city or Bezetha, but never
uses the name Zion. The upper city
lay opposite the temple and the lower
city; the latter was the Akra, south
of the temple and situated on the lowest
level within the walls; the proasteion coincided
with the new city enclosed within the so-called
second wall of the post-Solomonic kings; the new
city of Josephus arose in the decade after Herod
to the north of the temple and westward about the
wall to the tower of Hippicus. Still farther, Josephus
distinguishes between Bezetha, the new city, and
the wood market; Bezetha lay north of the temple
and Antonia and east of the street leading from the
gate by the Women's Tower to Antonia. His account
can not be followed without a knowledge of
the earlier arrangement of the city. Through Herod's
building operations the city took on something
of the splendor of a Grecian city. Besides the
temple he erected a stately tower, which he named
Antonia in honor of the Roman triumvir, and the
palace of Herod (located by its three great towers,
Hippicus, Phasael, and Mariamne) which commanded
the city as the Antonia commanded the
temple hill. The three towers served as a protection
for the city as well as for the palace (cf. for
description of towers and palace Josephus, War,
V., iv. 3-4). The palace was occupied later by
Archelaus and Agrippa I.; when the Romans appointed
a procurator over Judea, it was ceded to
him and his guard. Gessius Florus and Pontius
Pilate are said to have had their judgment seat in
front of the structure, hence here must be sought
the pretorium. In the upper city was the hippodrome,
and Herod is said to have built a theater
in Jerusalem and an amphitheater in the plain (the
latter probably discovered in 1887 by Dr. Schick
above Bir Eyyub). Finally, Herod took care for the
water supply of the city. Schick has shown that the
lower of the two conduits from the pools south of
the city near Artas is of Herod's building. It begins
immediately below the lowest of the three pools
and is carried in a winding course past Bethlehem
to Jerusalem as a masonry or hewn canal covered
with flat stones, only twice taking the character of
a tunnel. It has been repaired or improved several
times-by Pontius Pilate, again in the fourteenth
and sixteenth centuries and in 1865. The third
wall to the north of Jerusalem protects the "new
city" of Josephus. Agrippa I. began to build it,
but ceased because of the distrust of the Romans.
At the outbreak of the Jewish war it was again
undertaken and speedily finished. It was pierced
by many gates, the names of which are unknown;
one, protected by the so-called Women's Tower,
was probably where the Damascus date now is.
Its course was approximately that of the present
north wall. The inhabitants of Jerusalem at this
time, including the guests at the Passover, are
reckoned by Josephus at 2,700,000 (War, VI.,
ix. 3; cf. II., xiv. 3); Schick would place the normal
population at the beginning of the Christian era
at from 200,000 to 250,000. In the reign of the
Emperor Claudius (41-54 A.D.), Queen Helena of
Adiabene on the upper Tigris, her son Izates, and
other members of her family became converts to
Judaism and built residences for themselves in the
lower city (Josephus, War, IV., ix. 11, V., vi. 1).
Agrippa I. had the streets of the city paved to
give occupation to the great number of laborers left
without work (Josephus, Ant., XX., ix. 7), The
Amygdalon pool mentioned in War, V., xi. 4 is
doubtless the pool of Hezekiah; the name is a Greek
form of the Hebrew mighdal, "tower," and the
pool was near the Mariamne tower of the palace.
The Struthion pool of War, V., xi. 4 lay north of
Antonia, but its site is not yet certainly recovered.
The location of the pool of Bethesda is also uncertain;
it seems to have been near the sheep gate
and north of the temple. Dr. Schick has located
the Bethesda of the Middle Ages to the west of the
church of St. Anne north of the temple. Gethsemane
lay at the foot of the Mount of Olives, certainly
not far from the city, according to
John xviii. 1
a garden, and the site of the betrayal of
Jesus. The present garden in the possession of the
Franciscans has been known since the tenth or
eleventh century, but there are indications that the
earlier site was farther to the north. The Herodian
monument was located to the west of this, above
the valley of Hinnom, and has been identified by
Dr. Schick. The tomb of Queen Helena of Adiabene
was about a third of a mile from the north
wall of the city (Ant. XX., iv. 3); it is probably
the crypt with court, portal, and numerous chambers
known as the King's Tomb north of the
Damascus Gate.
6. Until Constantine the Great.
The city suffered greatly during the siege and
gradual capture under Titus. His express command
to destroy the city received willing
obedience from the embittered Roman
soldiery. Titus regarded only the three
towers of the palace as worth preserving,
and he spared the western part of
the city wall, as it guarded the camp
of the garrison on the southwest hill in the upper
city. The investment of the city began at the
Passover, when there was present a vast number of
visitors, so that the count of Josephus (War, VI.,
ix., x.) is not improbable. The place where the
faith of the Jews had received so severe a blow was
naturally avoided by them and Jabne (Jamnia)
became the center of Jewish life in Palestine. The
young Christian community, which before the investment
by Titus withdrew to Pella, east of the
Jordan, had as headquarters the house of John Mark
and his mother Mary (Acts xii. 12-17 ). Probably
there was the great upper chamber (Mark xiv. 15)
in which Jesus celebrated the last supper and also
the chamber mentioned in Acts i.13 and
ii. Although
the site of this place is pointed out by a tradition
reaching to the fourth century, there is no doubt
concerning its correctness. Epiphanius of Salamis
(392 A.D.) reports (De mensuris, xiv.) that when
Hadrian made his visit to Jerusalem in 130-131
he found city and temple destroyed except for a
few dwellings and the little Christian church on
what was then called Mount Zion. Since the time
of Cyril of Jerusalem this church, or another built
on its site, has been well known; it corresponds to
the present Nebi Da'ud on the southwest hill south
of the wall and above the tombs of the Davidic
dynasty. The name Zion was probably attached
to the church through an extension of usage out of
the Old Testament, since the name is not found
used of a part of the city by Josephus. According
to this usage the place of assemblage of the early
Christian community came to be called "the holy
Zion"; out of this grew the identification of the
southwest hill as Mount Zion, and so the topographic
signification of the term was lost. Hadrian
made an end of the desolation of the city and commanded
that it be rebuilt as a Roman colony;
during the rising of Bar Kokba it was for a few
years a free city, after that again a Roman colony,
but without the jus Italicum, and was called �lia
Capitolina, shortened in common speech to �lia, in
the Arabic to Iliya, till the late Middle Ages. The
city deity was Jupiter Capitolinus, whose temple
was on the site of the Jewish temple. Jews were
excluded from the new city under pain of death.
The area was diminished, and the old city of David
was outside the city limits. In this period were
fixed the form and topography of the city which
have survived till the present.
7. From Constantine to the Capture by the Arabs.
The heathen character of the city did not prevent
Christians from visiting or settling there; pilgrimages
began in the third century and
were numerous in the fourth. Helena,
the mother of Constantine, came there
in 326-327 and had churches built on
the sites of the birth and ascension of
Christ, in Bethlehem, and on the Mount
of Olives (for Constantine's building
see HOLY SEPULCHER). Constantine
relaxed the harsh laws against the Jews, Julian gave
them permission to restore their temple, but after
Julian the earlier prohibitions against the Jews seem
to have been renewed. In the second half of the
fourth century eremites and monks from Egypt
and Syria began to crowd into Palestine, in the
'fifth and sixth centuries causing bloody feuds
through dogmatic strife. The first monastery in
Jerusalem seems to have been built in the fifth
century. The coming of the Empress Eudocia,
consort of Theodosius II., in 438 had great consequences
for the city. To her is ascribed the renewal
of the old wall to the south, and various sacred
sites were joined to the city. She built the Church
of St. Stephen (possibly included in the present
possessions of the Dominicans). The Emperor
Justinian had the architect Georgios of Constantinople
erect a great basilica (that of the Theotokos)
in connection with a pilgrims' house and a hospital
in the middle of the city, perhaps south of the
Church of the Holy Sepulcher. The capture of the
city by the Persians under Chosroes II. (614) resulted
in the destruction of most of the ecclesiastical
structures, in the restoration of which the abbot
Modestus showed great zeal, though when the
Emperor Heraclius marched in (638), much of the
city was in ruins. In 638 the Caliph Omar took
Jerusalem.
8. Under the Arabs to the Crusades.
The stipulations of the surrender to the effect
that civic and ecclesiastical protection should be
given and that the churches were not
to be used as dwellings were observed
with comparative good faith. The
Arabs named the city Bait al-Mukaddas
or al-Makdis, "Place of the Sanctuary,"
shortened to al-Kuds, but made Lydda
their first military capital in Palestine. Only occasionally
had the pilgrims cause to complain of
hard usage, the relations between the East and the
West being good under the friendship of Charlemagne
and Harun al-Raschid. In the tenth century
began the strife between Islam and Christianity,
furthered by the bad faith of the Egyptian
Fatimides, who disregarded all treaties; the pilgrims
were compelled to pay a fee for entrance into
the city, and the Caliph al-Hakim in 1010 began a
severe persecution of the Christians. Merchants
from Amalfi, however, gained a footing in Jerusalem
with permission to trade, and soon had a church
(Sancta Maria Latina) and a monastery (Monsaterium
de Latina) to the south of the Church of
the Holy Sepulcher.
9. During the Crusades.
When Godfrey of Bouillon captured the city,
July 15, 1099, only two churches were found uninjured,
that of the Holy Sepulcher and
that of the Italian merchants, for the
latter of which tribute was paid. During
the continuance of the kingdom of
Jerusalem great zeal was displayed in
building. The principal gates of thin period were
David's gate (Jaffa gate), Stephen's (Damascus),
Jehoshaphat's, and Zion gate in the south. Near
David's gate was David's tower (the present citadel,
often repaired from the ruins of Herod's palace),
hence the later location of the "city of David."
Extensive building operations went on within the
grounds of the Amalfi merchants; the Benedictines
built a hospital in honor of Johannes Eleemon
(q.v.) in connection with which a community
dressed in black robes with a white cross came into
being--the beginning of the Knights of St. John.
The Hospitalers under the patronage of John the
Baptist took over the woman's guest-house. Since
the Latins located the pretorium north of the Zion
Church, later northwest of the temple square, the
direction of the Via Dolorosa was placed accordingly.
The pool of Bethesda (John v. 2) was placed by
them near the Church of St. Anna, discovered in
1888 northwest of this site; later it was located
north of the Haram al-Sharif. The Church of St.
Anne was known as early as the seventh century,
was repaired by the Franks, and later was connected
with a nunnery. The hills to the west and
south of the Hinnom valley were called Gihon. In
the valley of Jehoshaphat the Franks repaired the
tomb of the Virgin Mary and its church; while on
the third peak of Olivet stood, about 1130, a great
Church of the Ascension, where Constantine had
built a sanctuary.
10. From 1187 to the Present.
Jerusalem opened its gates to the victorious
Saladin Oct. 2, 1187. Most of the Latin Christians
departed; the Greeks remained. The
Christian and Occidental character
which the city had assumed during
the crusades soon changed as Christian
churches and cloisters became mosques
or Mohammedan schools. Salaldin had the walls renewed
when Richard the Lion-hearted threatened
a siege in 1191-92, but the Sultan Malik al-Muazzam
of Damascus ordered them destroyed that they
might not become a protection to the Christians
(1219-20). A treaty between the German Frederick
II. and the Egyptian Sultan al-Kamil secured the
city for the Christians (except the Harem al-Sharif)
for about ten years and a half from Feb. 1, 1229,
after which Nasir Daud, prince of Kerak, took the
city and destroyed the walls. The Egyptian Sultan
Eyyub took it in 1244, in 1517 it fell under the
power of the Turks under Selim I., and his successor
Solyman in 1542 gave to the walls of the pity their
present form. Syria was in the possession of
Mehemet Ali of Egypt 1831-40. In 1219 the Franciscans
gained a footing in the city, in the thirteenth
century held firmans under the Egyptian sultans,
in 1333 came into possession of the Zion Church
and perhaps of other sacred places, some of which
they had to yield to Solyman in 1523 and 1551;
their present location, northwest of the Church of
the Holy Sepulcher, was obtained in 1559. Since
the conquest of Jerusalem by the Turks the Christian
powers, with France in the lead, have protected
the Roman Catholic Christians in Palestine, Russia
has cared for the Greek Christians. A revolution in
the situation at Jerusalem was brought about by the
English (1826) and American (1821) missionaries;
an English consulate was established there in 1839,
a Prussian in 1842. England and Prussia had the
Evangelical bishopric of St. James created (see JERUSALEM, ANGLICAN-GERMAN BISHOPRIC IN). Other
Christian powers thus had their attention drawn to
the situation. The Greek patriarch Cyril transferred
his seat from Constantinople to Jerusalem in 1845,
and Rome reestablished the Latin patriarchate in
1847. Pilgrim-houses, hospitals, churches, schools
and monasteries have been erected, and these mark
the character of the peaceful crusade of the nineteenth
century, with the result that Jerusalem is
no more an Oriental city. Of its 60,000 inhabitants,
41,000 are Jews, 12,800 are Christians, 7,000 are Mohammedans.
Of the Christians, 6,000 are Greeks,
4,000 Latins, 1,400 Protestants, 800 Armenians,
200 Uniate Greeks, 150 Copts, 100 Abyssinians,
100 Syrians, and 50 Uniate Armenians. The Jews
are poverty-stricken and do not exert an influence
corresponding to their numbers.
(H. GUTHE.)
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Lists of literature are the Bibliotheca geographica
Palentinae, by R. R�hricht, Berlin, 1890, and by
T. Tobler, Leipsic, 1867. Indispensable for following recent
investigations are the Quarterly Statements of the
PEF, also the files of ZDPV, the Mitteilungen und Nachrichten of the Deutscher Pal�stina-Verein, the files of
ZDMG, Recueil d'arch�ologie orientale, and JBL. Valuable
as summaries are the articles in DB, ii. 584-601; EB, ii.
2407-2432; JE, vii. 118-157; DCG, i. 849-859.
For excavations and topographical details consult:
C. Warren, C. R. Conder, Survey of Western Palestine,
Jerusalem, London, 1884: E. G. Schultz, Jerusalem, Berlin, 1845; W. Krafft, Die Topographie Jerusalems, Bonn,
1846; T. Tobler, Die Siloahquelle und der Oelberg, St. Gall,
1852; idem, Zwei B�cher Topographie von Jerusalem, ib.
1853-54; E. Pierotti, Jerusalem Explored, 2 vols., London,
1864; C. J. M. de Vog��, Le Temple de Jerusalem, Paris,
1864; C. W. Wilson, Ordnance Survey of Jerusalem, 2 vols.,
Southampton, 1867-70; C. Wilson and C. Warren, Recovery
of Jerusalem, London, 1871; P. Wolff, Jerusalem,
Leipsic, 1872; C. Warren, Underground Jerusalem, London, 1876; H. Guthe, Ausgrabungen bei Jerusalem, Leipsic,
1883; C. Wilson, Jerusalem the Holy City, London, 1888;
F. J. Bliss, Excavations at Jerusalem, 1894-97, London,
1898: C. Mommert, Topographie des alten Jerusalem, 4
vols., Leipsic, 1902-08; S. Merrill, Ancient Jerusalem, New
York, 1908; G. A. Smith, The Topography, Economics and
History of Jerusalem to 70 A.D., 2 vols., London, 1908;
Robinson, Researches, and Later Researches. On the question of the Akra consult C. E. Caspari in TSK, 1864, pp.
309-328; G. Gatt, in TQ, lxvi (1884), 34-84 lxxi (1889),
77-125; idem, Die H�gel von Jerusalem, Freiburg, 1897.
For descriptions of the city consult: J. F. Thrupp,
Ancient Jerusalem, London 1855; A. B: MacGrigor, Index
of Passages . . . upon the Topography of Jerusalem. Glasgow
1876; C. Zimmermann, Karten und Pl�ns zur Topographic
des alten Jerusalem, Basel, 1876; G. Williams,
The Holy City, 2 vols., London, 1849; C. Ritter, Comparative Geography of Palestine, iv. 1-212, Edinburgh, 1866;
W. M. Thomson, The Land and the Book, vol. i., New York,
1880; F. Spiees, Das Jerusalem des Josephus, Berlin. 1881;
H. Nicole, Plan topographique de Jerusalem et ses environs,
Paris, 1886-87; J. H. Lewis, The Holy Places of Jerusalem,
London, 1888; G. R. Lees, Jerusalem Illustrated, ib. 1894;
G. A. Smith, Historical Geography of the Holy Land,
passim, ib. 1897; F. Diekamp, Hippolytus von Theben,
pp. 96 sqq., M�nster, 1898; W. Sanday, Sacred Sites of
the Gospels, Oxford, 1903; Miss A. Goodrich Freer, Inner
Jerusalem, London, 1904 (an excellent description of the
present city); Baedeker's Handbook on Syria and Palestine,
6th Germ. ed., Leipsic, 1904, 4th Eng. ed., 1906.
Pictorial productions are G. Ebers and H. Guthe, Pal�stina
in Bild und Wort, vol, i., Stuttgart, 1883; Hartmann-Bensinger, Pal�stina, Hamburg, 1889; and the views
published by the PEF.
On the history of the city in the Biblical period consult:
L. B. Paton, Jerusalem in Bible Times, Chicago, 1908;
E. Bevan, Jerusalem under the High Priests, London, 1904;
and the works on the history of Israel cited under AHAB.
For later periods consult: C. J. M. de Vog��, Les �nglises
de la terre sainte, Paris, 1860; T. Levin, Siege of Jerusalem
by Titus, London, 1863; V. Gu�rin, La Terre sainte, 2
parts, Paris, 1884; J. Guy le Strange, Palestine under the
Moslems, London, 1890; G. Dodu, Hist. des institutions
monarchiques dans le royaume latin de Jerusalem, Paris,
1894; Jerusalem et ses principaux sanctuaires, ib. 1895;
C. A. Couret, La Priss de Jerusalem . . . en 614; trois
documents, ib. 1896; C. R. Conder, The Latin Kingdom of
Jerusalem, 1099-1291, London, 1897; S. Lane Poole,
Saladin and the Fall of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, New
York, 1898; R. R�hricht, Geschichte des K�nigreichs
Jerusalem, Berlin, 1898; W. Besant and E. H. Palmer,
Jerusalem, the City of Herod and Saladin, London, 1899;
A. Achleitner, Jerusalem, Mainz, 1905; W. S. Caldecott,
The Second Temple in Jerusalem, London, 1908; and the
publications of the Palestine Pilgrim Text Society.
Maps of value are the Plan of Jerusalem prepared by the
PEF, and Karte der Materialen zur Topographie des Alten
Jerusalem, accompanied by Materialen zur Topographie
des Alten Jerusalem, both by A. K�mmel, Halle, 1904-06.