4 Jerusalem as It Was
The Hills and Valleys.—Sir Charles Warren was the first to point out the necessity of ascertaining the depth of the rock below the present surface, in as many places as possible, and of referring all the measurements to one fixed datum, the level of the sea. In the study of the ancient topography the original appearance of the ground is the first consideration, for although a certain amount of soil may always have existed, still the ancient surface must have conformed far more closely to that of the rock than does the present.
To this work very great attention has been given, first by Warren himself, in his exploration of numerous tanks and sinking of scores of shafts; next by Herr Schick, who, in his professional capacity of architect, has measured the position when sinking foundations for houses in every quarter of Jerusalem. Contours had also been given in the Ordnance Survey conducted by Sir C. Wilson in 1864. At length Conder was able to take all the data and send home a plan of rock levels for the entire city. From this he also prepared a reduced shaded sketch of the original rock site of the town. The sketch is here reproduced, and by the help of it the reader will find it comparatively easy to understand Josephus’s description, as well as the reconstruction of the ancient city which will be attempted in this section.
Josephus says—“The city of Jerusalem was fortified with three walls, on such parts as were not encompassed with unpassable valleys, for in such places it had but one wall. The city was built upon two hills, which are opposite to one another, and have a valley to divide them asunder, at which valley the corresponding rows of houses on both hills end. Of these hills that which contains the Upper City is much higher and in length more direct. Accordingly it was called the Citadel (φρούριον) by King David, but it is by us called the Upper Market Place. But the other hill, which was called Akra, and sustains the Lower City, is curved on both sides (ἀμφίκυρτος).25 Over against this was a third hill, but naturally lower than Akra, and parted formerly from the other by a broad valley. However, in those times when the Maccabees reigned, they filled up that valley with earth, and had a mind to join the city to the temple. They then took off part of the height of Akra, and reduced it to be of less elevation than it was before, that the temple might be superior to it. Now the Tyropœon Valley, as it was called, and was that which we told you before distinguished the hill of the Upper City from that of the Lower, extended as far as Siloam.” (Wars, v. 4, 1.)
In the next section Josephus tells us that as the city grew more populous it crept beyond its old limits, “and those parts of it that stood northward of the temple and joined that hill to the city, made it considerably larger, and occasioned that hill, which is in number the fourth, and is called Bezetha (or New City), to be inhabited also. It lies over against the Tower of Antonia, but is divided from it by a deep valley, which was dug on purpose, and that in order to hinder the foundations of the Tower of Antonia from joining to this hill.”
When we read these descriptions in the light of our plan, things become tolerably plain. The south-western hill was the Upper City—a large flat-topped hill surrounded with deep valleys, and having a level of about 2550 to 2500 feet above the sea. The eastern hill is known to be the Temple Hill, which is number three in Josephus’s description. Bezetha (number four) is distinctly described as the hill north of the Temple Hill, and only divided from it at one point by an artificial cutting. The explorers have found this cutting, carried through a narrow neck of high ground, at the north-western corner of the Haram. Thus there is no room to question that “the second hill, which was called Akra and sustained the Lower City” is the hill projecting down from the north-west like a promontory, gibbous in its form. The Upper City was divided from Akra “by a broad valley,” now partly filled up, which was called the Tyropœon Valley, and beginning near the Jaffa Gate, “extended as far as Siloam Fountain.” The summit of Akra is not more than 2480 feet above sea level—considerably lower than the Upper City—and looks lower than it is, because the whole site of Jerusalem is tilted up from the west like an inclined plane, and because the valleys about the Upper City are deeper. Josephus says the Akra hill used to be higher, and sustained the Macedonian fortress called the Akra, which dominated the Temple. Being so near and so high, it enabled the garrison to look down into the Temple courts. They used also to run out and molest the Jews who were passing from the Upper City into the Temple by the western gate (Joseph. Ant. xii. 9, 3; 1 Macc. i. 36; and Warren in “Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archæology,” vii. 314).
The Macedonian fortress was a thorn in the side of Jerusalem until Simon Maccabæus captured it and demolished it. At the same time he cut down the top of the hill itself; and perhaps it was with the material so obtained that he filled up the valley between Akra and the Temple. By the filling up of this valley, which it is convenient to call the Asmonean Valley, the two hills were joined together; and it would not be surprising if the terms “Akra” and “Lower City” soon after began to have an extended meaning, and to embrace all the buildings on both the hills which were now united into one.
Having now a definite conception of the original lie of the ground, and knowing the four hills of Jerusalem by name and location, we can proceed to plant a few of the ancient buildings in their proper places.
The Temple of Solomon.—We have already seen reason for placing the Temple over the very summit of Moriah; but we must now make our reasons quite conclusive, and also show the limits of the Temple courts.
In the first place the summit of the mountain is the natural position for the Temple, rather than any position on the slope. The rock called the Sakhrah and the Foundation-stone of the World has been sacred from time immemorial. It seems to be referred to in Isaiah xxviii. 16—“Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner (stone), of sure foundation.” Ezekiel also, with Josephus and the Talmud, all agree in placing the temple on the summit of the mountain (Ezek. xliii. 12).
As remarked by Dr Chaplin,26 the question whether the “stone of foundation” was a portion of the solid rock or a movable stone is one of considerable interest in connection with the topography of the Temple. If the former, it will be easy to fix with all but absolute certainty its position, and from it as a starting-point, to lay down the sites of the temple, altar, and courts with no more uncertainty than the uncertain value of the cubit renders inevitable. The use of the word Eben would imply that it was a movable stone, but its (supposed) history, as given by the Rabbis, quite removes it from the category of ordinary stones, and represents it as the centre or nucleus from which the world was founded. The Toldoth Yesu represents it as a movable stone, and states that King David, when digging the foundation of the temple, found it “over the mouth of the abyss” with The Name engraved upon it, and that he brought it up and placed it in the Holy of Holies. “On the whole” (says Dr Chaplin) “it is difficult to come to any other conclusion than that the stone which the Rabbis write about was a portion of rock projecting three finger-breadths upwards from the floor of the Holy of Holies, covering a cavity which was regarded as the mouth of the abyss, reverenced as the centre and foundation of the world, and having the ineffable name of God inscribed upon it.”
The statements made in the Talmud and repeated over and over again with great accuracy by Rabbinic writers, supply us with the following precise information: (1) The stone of foundation (in other words, the solid rock) was the highest point within the Holy of Holies, projecting slightly above the floor, and from it the rock sloped downwards on all sides. (2) A “solid and closed foundation,” 6 cubits high, was made all round the house in order to raise the floor to (within three finger-breadths of) its summit. On the eastern side this solid foundation was covered by steps leading down to the court, 22 cubits below the summit on that side. We must agree with Dr Chaplin that the summit of the Sakhrah under the great Dome of the Rock is the only spot in the whole enclosure which answers to these data.
The Holy House, with its courts, was not in the centre of the enclosure, but had a position north-west of the centre. The altar court was at a lower level than the Holy House; and lower still, by successive descents, were the court of Israel, the court of the women, and the court of the Gentiles. The courts being in terraces one above another, and the Holy House at the summit, the temple was a far more conspicuous object than is the Dome of the Rock at the present day.
The Talmud describes the Temple area as 500 cubits square. The prophet Ezekiel says “it had a wall round about, the length five hundred and the breadth five hundred, to make a separation between that which was holy and that which was common” (xlii. 20). Then we are told by Maimonides, the learned Jewish writer, that “the men who built the second temple, when they built it in the days of Ezra, they built it like Solomon’s, and in some things according to the explanation in Ezekiel.”
Taking then the centre of the Sakhrah as the centre of the Holy of Holies, and allowing ourselves to be guided by the Talmud measurements, which are given with great exactitude, we shall not be far wrong if we draw the boundaries as follows:—On the north, the northern limit of the present platform, the line of which if continued eastward would cut the east wall of the Haram a little north of the Golden Gate. The platform is raised 12 feet above the present general surface of the Haram enclosure. One day when the rain had loosened a stone near the north-eastern corner of the platform and revealed the existence of vaults, Warren went down and took measurements; and it appears that the northern end of the platform consists of rock which has been scarped away perpendicularly. On the south the boundary would come to within a few feet of the entrance of El Aksa mosque, and would fall short of the south wall of the Haram by 300 feet. On the east and west the boundaries would fall a little way within the present walls of the Haram. We may reasonably conclude that the present east and west walls of the Haram either represent walls of the Temple enclosure, or else were built a little without them, as retaining walls for gradually accumulating debris.
When the Temple of Solomon was destroyed, with all the buildings that surrounded it, the debris would be piled up in the courts. Probably it would never be thought worth while to remove it all from the lower courts, but rather to cover it over and lay a neat pavement on the surface. Spaces and corners where the rubbish was less gathered would be filled in or built up to complete the levelling; and as the rubbish increased, both within and without the walls, after successive sieges, the walls themselves were further built up, to keep them of sufficient height. It never was intended in the first instance, to build walls up from the foundation and make them 150 feet high. By successive changes, the result of calamities as much as the fruit of improvement, the terraced mountain grew to be an elevated plateau, such as the Haram enclosure is at the present day. Josephus says that when Herod rebuilt the Temple he extended the area of the courts and made it twice as large as it was before. With that, however, we need not concern ourselves while we are seeking to restore the city of Old Testament times.
Solomon’s Palace we find reasons for placing south of Solomon’s Temple, on the slope of the terraced mountain, with its south-eastern angle coinciding with the present south-eastern corner of the Haram. Those deep-buried stones with the Phœnician masons’ marks upon them may be the very foundation stones of the palace. The palace was a great work, and occupied thirteen years in building. It was necessary to build up at this corner, but as soon as a level was reached that permitted the work to be carried through from east to west, the six-feet course was laid as the true base for the more splendid superstructure. This six-feet course extends for 600 feet westward from the south-east angle, and gives us the limit in that direction. Northward we are limited by the courts of the temple to 300 feet. This, then, is where Sir Charles Warren places Solomon’s palace, and these are the dimensions he assigns to it. Mr James Fergusson had already been led, from architectural reasons, to consider it an oblong of 550 feet by 300. The level of the six-feet course is 60 feet below the summit of the mountain. A patient examination of the wall led Warren to the conclusion that all below this great course is old work, and that the walls of the Haram generally correspond to the description of Josephus, in whose day the great wall of Solomon still existed.
The Temple and the palace being thus located, there is left, beyond the west end of the palace, a plot of ground, 300 feet square, not enclosed at the time we are speaking of, although at the present day it forms the south-western corner of the Sanctuary and has the mosque El Aksa covering it. But the great depression of the Tyropœon Valley falls just there, and it would not be raised and enclosed until a late day. Warren says, in the “Recovery of Jerusalem”: “Our researches show that the portion of the wall to the west of the Double Gate is of a different construction to, and more recent than that to the east. This is a matter of very great importance, and, combined with other results, appears to show the impossibility of the Temple having existed at the south-west angle, as restored by Mr Fergusson and others. The only solution of the question I can see, is by supposing the portion to the east of the Double Gate to have formed the south wall of Solomon’s palace, and that to the west to have been added by Herod when he enlarged the courts of the Temple.”
Before this addition was made the south wall was but 600 feet in length. The Triple Gate stood in the middle of it, and as we have seen, it is exactly on the ridge of the hill. The sill is 38 feet below the present level of the Sanctuary, and from the gate three avenues ascend gently to the Sanctuary floor. May they not represent “the way by which Solomon went up to the House of the Lord”?
The Wall of Ophel, as already described, has been discovered by Warren, and abuts against the south-eastern angle of what we are now prepared to regard as Solomon’s palace.
The Tower of Antonia.—Josephus tells us that the tower which Herod built and named in honour of Antony stood on a rock 50 cubits high, at the north-west corner of the Temple. The rock was separated from Bezetha by a cutting made on purpose, yet the tower was so near to Bezetha that it adjoined the New City. At the same time it was so near to the Temple that the south-eastern turret overlooked the Temple courts, while passages from the tower led to the west and north cloisters. This description is precise enough. As Conder says, there is just such a rock fortress in the north-west part of the Haram. It is a great scarp, with vertical faces on the south and north, standing up 40 feet above the interior court, and separated from the north-eastern hill of Jerusalem by a ditch 50 yards broad, in which are now the Twin Pools—the Bethesda of St. Jerome. This block of rock is “the top of the hill” spoken of by Josephus, and occupies a length of 100 yards along the course of the north wall of the Haram. No other such scarp exists in or near the enclosure of the High Sanctuary. Can we then hesitate to place Antonia here?
Herod, after all, only repaired and strengthened this tower, for it had been built by Hyrcanus and passed under the name of Baris before being renamed Antonia, and even Hyrcanus was not the first at this work (page 265).
[Authorities and Sources:—“Quarterly Statements of P. E. Fund.” “The Recovery of Jerusalem.” Sir C. Warren. “The Works of Josephus.”]