3 Excavations at Jerusalem
In the beginning of 1867 Lieutenant Warren, R.E. (now Colonel Sir Charles Warren), began his work of excavation in Jerusalem, assisted by several corporals of sappers, and employing native Arabs as labourers. Scores of shafts were sunk through the accumulated rubbish, and were always carried down to the natural rock. In cases where the miners came upon artificial structures—arches, aqueducts, cisterns, or other works of man—they were carefully explored and measured, and plans of them made to scale. It was considered important to examine the underground masonry of the Temple rampart; but as the walls are regarded as sacred, and it was desirable not to offend the susceptibilities of the inhabitants, this was accomplished by sinking shafts at a distance from the wall and driving lateral galleries. Sometimes when an unsympathising Turkish official came to inspect the works, a twist was given to the rope as he descended, and so, having lost his bearings, he could not be sure that he gazed upon the foundations of the Temple when they were really shown to him. The work was continued until the year 1870, and the results are recorded in the Jerusalem volume of the Memoirs. Let us now glance at some of the more striking discoveries on all the four sides of the Haram.
In the Tyropœon Valley.—On the west side of the Haram, about 39 feet from the south-western angle, a great stone is seen projecting from the wall. Dr Robinson, the American traveller, believed it to be the spring-stone of an arch—perhaps the first arch of a bridge going to the Upper City—but others took a different view, and the question could only be settled by excavation. The span of the arch, as deduced from the curve of the spring-stone, should be about 42 feet. At that distance from the wall Warren discovered the pier of the arch, resting on the rock at a depth of 42 feet. It is 12 feet 2 inches in thickness, 52 feet 6 inches in length (the spring-stone above ground is 50 feet) and is constructed of long drafted stones, similar to those in the wall, one of them being over 13 feet in length and weighing ten tons. Three courses of stones were in place on the eastern side and two on the western.
To the west of the pier is a rock-hewn channel, close to the pier, with a perpendicular scarp below the pier of 4 feet; and on the east side of the pier the rock is scarped down nearly perpendicularly for a depth of about 18 feet.
But nearly on a level with the base of the pier, on the east side, a pavement extends from the pier to the Haram wall; and on this pavement rest the fallen voussoirs of the arch. Below the pavement is a mass of debris, and in the bottom of the space is an aqueduct cut in the rock nearly 12 feet deep, arched over, but with the roof crushed in at one place by the voussoirs of a more ancient arch.
Following the aqueduct to the south we presently come to a pool or cistern, 16 feet in diameter; and beyond this the channel turns the corner of the Haram and ends to-day in a drain. Following the aqueduct to the north it brings us to another pool, and presently to a third, this third one being partly underneath the wall of the Haram. The channel was evidently intended to supply the city with pure water, for after the debris had accumulated, shafts were made from the pavement before spoken of, to allow of buckets being let down.
The chief explorers, Warren and Conder, whose matured opinion is given in the Jerusalem volume of the Memoirs, find “no grounds for supposing that the roadway over Robinson’s Arch led up to the Upper City, either by steps or by a bridge; it was probably one of the suburban entrances spoken of by Josephus. There may have been other arches in continuation of Robinson’s Arch, but there is no indication of this existing on the ground.”
Proceeding from Robinson’s Arch up the valley, we come to the Gate of the Chain, a chief entrance to the Haram. The street running westward from it is the Street of the Chain, and would bring us, with one little elbow, into David Street, whence we go straight to the Jaffa Gate. But in front of the Gate of the Chain it is found that the Street of the Chain passes over a fine arch (now called Wilson’s Arch) 42 feet in span, like Robinson’s Arch lower down. From an old book, called “La Citez de Jherusalem,” we learn that the street coming south from the Damascus Gate to the Dung Gate used to pass under this arch in the Middle Ages. The road passing over the arch is about 80 feet above the rock. But the rock under the western pier is 10 feet higher than under the Noble Sanctuary, and the lowest point in the valley is about 16 feet west of the Sanctuary wall. Westward of the pier the Street of the Chain rests upon a Causeway, made up of a complication of structures difficult to describe. There is a long passage or tunnel running along under the street, which for convenience is called the “Secret Passage.” North of this run two parallel rows of vaults, which are broken up by more recent work, apparently Saracenic. But when the vaults were made they interfered at one place with a very ancient chamber of drafted stones, the “Ancient Hall,” which has all the appearance of being one of the oldest buildings in Jerusalem. A shaft was sunk in the floor of the chamber to a depth of 11 feet 6 inches, through rough masonry as hard as a wall, but without finding rock. With regard to the Secret Passage, an Arabic writer, Mejr ed Din, says that the Street of David is “so named from a subterranean gallery which David caused to be made from the Gate of the Chain to the Citadel called the Mihrab of David. It still exists, and parts of it are occasionally discovered. It is solidly vaulted.” It would, however, be unsafe to accept the Arab writer’s opinion as to the date and use of the passage.
As touching the original contours of the ground, it appears from the excavations in the Tyropœon that two valleys descend, one from the Damascus Gate, the other from near the Jaffa Gate, and that they were originally very deep, giving the lower part of the north-western hill a rounded and gibbous form. The accumulation of rubbish at Wilson’s Arch is 80 feet, at Robinson’s Arch it is still more, and the true bed of the valley passes under the Haram and comes out on the south side at a distance of 90 feet from the south-west angle. There is a steep scarp from the Upper City down to the present Tyropœon, and thence the rock shelves down to the ancient valley bed.
On the Ophel Hill.—Ophel is the southern slope of Mount Moriah; and as we stand on the slope, looking northward, we face the south wall of the Noble Sanctuary. Right in the middle of it is the Triple Gate, from which the surface of the ground shelves down 22 feet to the south-east angle, while westward it maintains its level. Yet really, in that western part (hidden from us just now by the wall of the city) the true bed of the Tyropœon runs out, and the depth of soil or rubbish is 85 feet. At the Triple Gate itself the rock is found about 2 feet below the sill; but at the south-east angle again we should have to sink a shaft 80 feet deep to find it. Thus the original surface of Ophel is all covered up, and its true contour disguised. Buried in the rubbish Warren has found the Wall of Ophel, abutting on the wall of the Sanctuary at the south-east angle. It is about 12 feet wide at the top and 15 feet at the bottom; it runs southward for 76 feet, and then makes a bend to the west, in which direction it extends for 700 feet, and there ends abruptly. At the bend it is strengthened by a projecting tower, and below the bend there are several towers, one standing out very prominently. (See Plan of Haram Area, p. 212.)
The whole space of ground within this wall, wherever the spade was put in, proved to be rich in antiquities of various dates. One of the most interesting discoveries was that of a cavern with fullers’ vats, close to the traditional spot where St James was thrown over the Temple wall and despatched by a fuller’s baton.
At the South-Eastern Angle.—At this corner the wall stands about 70 feet high above the ground. At a height of 22 feet we observe the great stone which is estimated to weigh more than one hundred tons; and the courses below that have the appearance of being ancient work. But we still have to go 78 or 80 feet beneath the surface to find the foundations of the wall. It appears that the lowest or foundation course is partially sunk in the rock at the angle. When the builders of the Temple came to work here, they found upon the rock an accumulation of 8 or 10 feet of fat mould, abounding in potsherds. This they cut through in order to lay their foundation stones on the solid rock. In the red earth were found fragments of pottery and fat-lamps, which probably are of the earliest type of lamp used in Jerusalem. Resting on the red earth was a layer of broken pottery, and in this was found a rusty nail, some charred wood, and several jar handles. Some of these last had well-defined figures impressed on them, resembling in some degree a bird, but believed to represent a winged sun or disc, possibly the emblem of the Sun god. On each handle, above and below the wings, are some Phœnician letters, corresponding in one case to LMLK ZPH, and in the other to LK SHT. At 3 feet east of the angle a hole was discovered scooped out of the rock, and in it was found a little earthen jar, standing upright as though it had been purposely placed there.
More interesting still, Warren discovered on some of the lower stones near the south-east angle a number of marks in red paint, with two or three characters also inscribed with the chisel. The late Emanuel Deutsch declared them to be partly letters, partly numerals, and partly special masons’ marks, exactly corresponding to some which he found on the substructures of the harbour of Sidon, and the very oldest ruins in the city of Tyre. As we know from the Bible that Solomon employed Phœnician masons to build the Temple, this discovery was thought at first to prove the Solomonic age of this part of the wall. But further reflection warns us that it is not of itself sufficient; the old alphabet might be but little changed in the days when Herod rebuilt the Temple, and the forms of masons’ marks might be the same with Phœnicians and with Romans. As, however, they appear to be quarry signs, they seem to imply that the stones were shaped at the quarry, and not upon the ground, and thus support the Scripture statement that the Temple was erected without sound of axe or hammer. The same may be said of the marginal drafts or bevels, which on some stones are carried all round, on some round three sides, or only two, and exhibit no pattern or design when we look at the wall as a whole. The quarry whence the stones appear to have been brought is called the Cotton Cavern; its entrance is outside the walls, east of Damascus Gate, and it extends under the north-eastern part of the city for more than a quarter of a mile. The cavern was not unknown in the time of the Sultans, but it was afterwards lost sight of, until in the year 1852, a dog scratching away the earth and stones, again uncovered the mouth of it. In this quarry we go over ground covered with chips, we see some blocks of stone in the rough, and others cut, and some only partially severed from the rock. We see also the places where lamps rested to give light to the workers. But in the fat mould at the angle of the wall we do not find any stone chippings.
In the Kedron Valley there is an accumulation of nearly 100 feet of loose stone chippings and other debris, lying against the wall of the Sanctuary, covering all the western side of the valley, and resting at its eastern part upon the slope of Olivet. The true bed of the Kedron is 40 feet west of its present surface bed. On the west side of the true bed was found a masonry wall, 3 feet thick; and at intervals, as the rock rises other walls are encountered, built apparently for supporting terraces.
From the south-east angle the foundation of the wall rises, to about the middle of the eastern side, and then falls again, down to the Golden Gate and beyond. The construction of the Golden Gate is still a vexed question; it is possibly a reconstruction of comparatively late date, but it stands on the ancient foundations of a gateway, which in some measure correspond with those of the Triple Gate. North of the Golden Gate the rock still falls, and the depth of rubbish in the depression is in the deepest part 125 feet. Yet the wall is built up from the bottom, and is carried across the depression to the higher rock surface north of it. It extends beyond the north-east angle of the Haram without showing any break at that point; and this seems to favour the idea that a break may be found more to the south, where the Haram terminated before Herod enlarged its area. In fact the masonry north of the Golden Gate is of a rougher sort than that south of it. But it is impossible to examine the buried portion of the east wall at all points, because a Mohammedan cemetery covers the ground, and excavation among the graves is forbidden. It was only by sinking shafts at a distance from the wall, and employing a method of laborious tunnelling, that the depth of the foundations could be ascertained. Warren’s work hereabout has been pronounced by Sir Charles Wilson to be without a parallel in the history of excavation. “In one shaft alone no less than 600 feet run of shaft and gallery was excavated.”
If we might only explore freely within this cemetery Warren is confident that we should come upon those huge stones—20 cubits long and 6 cubits thick—which Solomon laid down on this side when he built the temple (Josephus, Ant. xx. 9,7). One would suppose that the present north-east angle, added by Herod, was of much later date than the south-eastern; yet here again “Phœnician” masons’ marks are found. Masons’ marks, however, may have a tendency to remain the same through many ages. It is a curious fact that the red paint with which they were put on has “run” in one instance, while still wet, and the trickling is upwards as the stone stands in the wall. This shows that the marking was done before the stone was placed, and very likely at the quarry.
North of the Haram enclosure.—The excavations just referred to were sufficient to show that a deep valley once existed to the north of the Temple, as described by Josephus, in “Antiquities” xiv. 4, 2 and “Wars” i. 7, 3, where he states that Pompey found it a difficult business to fill it up. This valley commences to the north of the city wall, passes down west of the Church of St Anne, and runs into the Kedron, past the Sanctuary wall, at a distance of 145 feet south of the north-east angle. The great reservoir, called the Birket Israil, which extends along the northern side of the Sanctuary for 360 feet, lies across this valley. It is 126 feet wide and 80 feet deep. The west wall of the reservoir is rock, and the east wall is partly rock and partly masonry; while the south wall of the pool is at the same time the north wall of the Sanctuary.
The excavations on all sides of the Sanctuary, and the examination of the cisterns within the enclosure, show that Mount Moriah was originally somewhat pear-shaped in contour, the rock shelving off on all sides from the summit, which is now under the Dome of the Rock. At the north-western corner, however, the rock was high, and there was a narrow neck which joined this hill to Bezetha and made it a sort of peninsula in form. This neck has been artificially cut through.
The Tunnels from the Virgin’s Fountain.—From the Virgin’s Fountain, about 320 yards south of the Triple Gate, and on the eastern side of Ophel, a tunnel has been excavated through the hill to the Pool of Siloam. The distance between these two places is not much more than 300 yards, but the tunnel winds about and its length is 1708 feet (or 569 yards). Robinson and others had been through it, and found it difficult to traverse, for it is necessary to go part of the way crawling on hands and feet. Colonel Warren, accompanied by Serjeant Birtles and a fellah, patiently explored it, taking compass bearings at every turn, and giving us at last an accurate plan of it. It was no easy work crawling in three or four inches of water, recording observations with pencil and paper, and carrying candles at the same time. Nor was the business unattended with danger, for the flow of water being intermittent, and an unexpected flow occurring while they were in the tunnel, it proved very difficult to keep their mouths above water.
An inscription within this tunnel escaped the notice of all explorers until lately, and was not detected even by Warren.
The present Pool of Siloam measures about 55 feet, north and south by 18 feet east and west, and is about 20 feet deep. At the north end an archway, 5 feet wide, appears, leading to a small vault, 12 feet long, in which is a descent from the level of the top of the pool to the level of the channel supplying it. In the year 1880 one of the pupils of Herr Conrad Schick, the architect of the Church Missionary Society, while climbing down fell into the water, and on rising to the surface noticed the appearance of letters on the wall of the rock. The rock had been smoothed so as to form a tablet about 27 inches square, which contains six lines of writing on its lower portion. The inscription is about 5 yards from the mouth of the channel, and is on the right hand of an explorer entering from the Siloam end. It could hardly be read at first, because a deposit of lime had formed over it. Dr Guthe removed this by washing the tablet with a weak solution of hydrochloric acid. Major Conder, with the aid of Lieutenant Mantell, expended much labour and patience in taking a “squeeze,” sitting for three or four hours cramped up in the water in order to obtain a perfect copy, and repeating the experience in order to verify every letter. Conder’s squeezes were the basis of the earliest correct representation published in Europe. Professor Sayce, who had already visited the tunnel and made a provisional translation of the text, was now enabled to improve it; and the following is the translation:—
“1. (Behold the) excavation! Now this is the history of the excavation. While the excavators were still lifting up
“2. The pick, each towards his neighbour, and while there were yet three cubits to (excavate, there was heard) the voice of one man
“3. Calling to his neighbour, for there was an excess (?) in the rock on the right hand (and on the left?). And after that on the day
“4. Of excavating the excavators had struck pick against pick, one against another,
“5. The waters flowed from the spring to the pool for a distance of 1200 cubits. And (part)
“6. Of a cubit was the height of the rock over the head of the excavators.”23
The meeting of the two parties of excavators near the middle of the tunnel accords with Warren’s discovery of two false cuttings, one on either side, at a distance of 900 feet from the Siloam end.
The inscription is in ancient characters, very much resembling those on the Moabite Stone, but possessing certain peculiarities. It is probably the oldest bit of Hebrew writing on stone that we possess, and opens out a new chapter in the history of the alphabet. It gives the first monumental evidence of the condition of civilisation among the Hebrews in the days of their kings; and altogether it is the most important discovery of the kind since the finding of the Moabite Stone.
Major Conder says that the general impression resulting from an examination of the conduit is that it was the work of a people whose knowledge of engineering was rudimentary. It is well known that in mining it is very difficult to induce the excavator to keep in a truly straight line, the tendency being to diverge very rapidly to one side. It is possible that this is the real reason of the crooked run of the canal; but another reason may have been the comparative hardness of the strata met in mining at a uniform level through a hill, with beds having a considerable dip. It will, however, be observed, that, after passing the shaft, the direction of the tunnel changes to a line more truly directed on the Virgin’s Fountain. The excavators from the Siloam end became aware, probably by the impossibility of seeing a light at the head of the mine, when standing at the mouth of the tunnel, that they were not going straight, and the only means they had of correcting the error consisted in making a shaft up to the surface to see where they had got to. After ascertaining this they went straight for about 140 feet, and then diverged gradually to the left; but their general direction, nevertheless, agrees roughly with that of the rock contour, which may be due to following a particular seam of rock.
It is recognised by Colonel Warren that the tunnel running southward to the Pool of Siloam was not the first tunnel excavated in connection with the Virgin’s Fountain. A channel had previously been made from the Virgin’s Fountain due west, for a distance of 67 feet, into the heart of the hill, and there communicated by a shaft and corridors with the surface. When the longer tunnel came to be made the engineers wisely availed themselves of the channel already existing, and began their new excavation at a distance of 50 feet from the Virgin’s Fount. The priority of the channel running due west to the shaft appears to be undoubted; and it is clear that whatever mistakes of direction might be made by unscientific engineers when they had got some distance into the hill, they never would begin by working due west from the Virgin’s Fount when their object was to make a channel south-south-west to Siloam Pool.
At the bottom of the shaft, which is 67 feet due west, Warren found the rock scooped out into a basin 3 feet deep, for the water to lie in, and at the top of the shaft an iron ring to which the rope of the bucket could be tied. The shaft was 40 feet in height, and then the space began to open out westward into a great cavern, there being a sloping ascent at an angle of 45°, covered with loose stones of about a foot cube. Warren says it was ticklish work ascending, for the stones all seemed longing to be off, and one starting would have sent the mass rolling, himself with it, on top of the serjeant, all to form a mash at the bottom of the shaft. After ascending about 30 feet they got on to a landing. The cave now opened out to south-west and north-west. Following it in the latter direction they arrived at a passage 40 feet long, at the far end of which was a rough wall. Creeping through a hole in this they ascended a steep staircase for 50 feet, passed another wall, and found themselves in a vaulted chamber. The exit at last was on the Hill of Ophel, a few feet from the ridge, and almost certainly, some writers maintain, within the ancient walls. The object of the cuttings was to get a supply of water from within; and perhaps the piles of loose stones which were found in the long passage were intended to be thrown down the shaft if an enemy should attempt to ascend it. In the passage were found three glass lamps of curious construction, placed at intervals as if to light the way; and in the vaulted chamber a little pile of charcoal as if for cooking, one of these lamps, a cooking dish glazed inside, for heating food, and a jar for water. Evidently the place had been used as a refuge.
A similar arrangement for closing the entrance to a spring, and using a secret passage from the hill above, has lately been discovered at El Jib (ancient Gibeon),24 and only a few years ago at ’Amman (Rabbath Ammon). In connection with the latter, Conder quotes Polybius to the effect that when Antiochus the Great besieged the forces of Ptolemy Philopater, at Amman, in 218 B.C., the garrison held out until a prisoner revealed a secret communication with a water supply outside the walls.
Difficulties of the Work.—It is impossible to read the detailed accounts of Warren’s work at Jerusalem without feeling an admiration for the courage and patience of the explorers, and without being sometimes amused at the ludicrous predicaments into which they occasionally got. They have been jammed in aqueducts, wedged in chasms, and walled up behind falling heaps of debris. They have had to go down ladders too short for reascending, to squeeze down apertures that have taken the skin off the shoulders, and have been half drowned in cisterns at the bottom. In the Tyropœon the soil is so soaked with sewage that it poisons the flesh wherever it touches a scratch. In the Kedron Valley the soil is so loose that it rushes into the galleries, almost flowing like a fluid, and drives the men out. In the Siloam tunnel they more than once ran the risk of being drowned. In the Ophel shaft a loose stone, weighing eight cwt., threatened momentarily to fall upon their heads. Once when the Arab labourers had gone down a shaft, where the ancient bed of the Tyropœon runs out, 90 feet from the south-west angle, they had descended 79 feet when they came upon a stone slab. They began breaking it up with a hammer, when presently the pieces fell in, the hammer disappeared, and the men, in terror lest they should fall into unknown depths, rushed to the surface, sought out the serjeant, and assured him that they had found the bottomless pit! The awful depth proved to be just 6 feet more to the solid rock!
Warren had often to dig in people’s gardens, or to mine under their houses, or sink shafts near to their sacred places, and it required much tact to deal with the prejudices of the Mohammedans, and to satisfy all claims for compensation. In the neighbourhood of Jerusalem a piece of garden ground may belong to one man, be rented by another, while a dozen people claim an interest in the crops that grow upon it. Sometimes Warren’s labourers have been dragged before the judges and threatened with imprisonment, or told that they shall be sent to do forced labour on the Jaffa Road. When Warren was working at the Virgin’s Fountain there was much commotion among the people of Siloam. Work was to be resumed in the morning; but one cantankerous sheikh, taking it into his head that Englishmen had no business out of their own country, effectually stayed proceedings by sending a bevy of damsels to the Fount to wash. On one occasion a Turkish officer of Engineers, dressed in full uniform, approached, in no friendly spirit, to examine one of the shafts. If he had chosen to give an adverse report the work would have been stopped. He knew that Warren was in command, but he marched magnificently past him without deigning to notice him, and was going straight for the head of the shaft. But Warren passed on rapidly before him, threw over the ladder which some lady visitors had been using, blew out the light, and descended by a rope. The Turk, hearing a crash, and seeing Warren disappear in the darkness, was afraid that something terrible had occurred, which he did not wish to be responsible for, and lost no time in turning his steps away. But, after all, when we consider that the Sanctuary at Jerusalem is as sacred to the Mohammedans as the precincts of Westminster Abbey to ourselves, it is marvellous how much Sir Charles Warren succeeded in effecting, and with how little friction he did it.
[Authorities and Sources:—“Quarterly Statements of P. E. Fund.” “Recovery of Jerusalem.” Sir C. Warren. “Tent Work in Palestine.” Major Conder.]