Tent Work in Palestine: A Record of Discovery and Adventure

by C. R. Conder

In 1830 A.D. the Sultan Mahmûd, and in 1873-5 A.D. the late ’Abd el ’Azîz, repaired the Dome, and the latter period was one specially valuable for those who wished to study the history of the place.

Such is a plain statement of the gradual growth of the building. The dates of the various inscriptions on the walls fully agree with the circumstantial accounts of the Arab writers who describe the Dome of the Rock.

The materials employed were all apparently designed for their present uses and positions, with exception of the columns supporting the dome and the outer arcade. These have a Byzantine character, and they appear to have been torn from some other building or buildings, probably from Christian churches, just as in the case of the Mosque of ’Amrû at Cairo, or like the pillars which Jezzar Pacha at Acre collected for his mosque. Of every capital in the place I made a careful sketch; of those under the dome, as shown in the illustration, only three are alike. The cross is said to occur on one boss, as at Bethlehem. I have searched for this in vain, though I have a sketch of every boss, but there would be no impossibility in its presence if the pillar came from a church. The bases differ as much as the capitals, as we saw when the marble slabs were removed in 1875. The shafts are also of various heights and diameters, and one at least is upside down, with the capital of another pillar placed on its base end.

Leaving this beautiful and interesting building we crossed the platform southward, having on our right the old sun-dial, which the Crusaders held to mark the site of the Temple altar; and passing the beautiful summer pulpit we descended to the southern court. The most picturesque view is from this point. The Dome of the Rock is seen behind the venerable cypresses of the lower court—a great cupola on which sit innumerable doves, while, beneath it, the walls are resplendent with the harmonious colouring of the tiles—white, blue, green, black, and yellow, in elegant tracery which cannot now be imitated. In front are the flat steps leading up to the pillars and arches called “balances” by the Moslems, and below them are the little chambers of the Sheikhs who live in the enclosure.

The black fanatics who guard the holy place lounged among the trees, and a funeral procession was slowly marching, with subdued murmurs, round the Chapel of the Rock, while, by a curious coincidence, a gorgeous wedding-party in bright-coloured silks, was also approaching the same place.

The great enclosure outside the platform is not paved; it is covered with grass and planted with olives and cypresses. Only the platform is fairly level, and its flagging in parts is covered with Crusading masons’-marks. There is, as above noticed, only one mosque in the enclosure—the great building on the south wall. The whole area is called Haram esh Sherîf, “High Sanctuary,” and Masjid el Haram, “Praying-place of Sanctuary;” also sometimes Masjid el Aksa, “the far-off praying-place,” in allusion to its distance from Mecca and to the Prophet’s long night journey. The mosque itself is called Jami’a el Aksa, or the “far-off meeting-house.” To it we next repaired.

The history of the mosque differs from that of the Dome of the Rock. Justinian, in the sixth century, erected a basilica in honour of the Virgin, partly supported by vaults beneath. The remains of such a basilica are distinguishable in the Aksa, and the vault beneath the mosque has the peculiarity of Byzantine vaulting—the narrow keystone, which is not found in the round arches of the Kubbet es Sakhrah, or Dome of the Rock.

In 637 A.D. the Church of St Mary was visited by Omar, and the “station” where he prayed is still shown in the Aksa. In 688 A.D. Abd el Melek covered the doors with gold and silver plates. Additions were made in the eighth century, and the width of the building was increased. The cupola bears the date 728 A.D. The Crusaders called the place Solomon’s Palace, Solomon’s Porch, or Solomon’s Temple. The Templars remodelled it, adding an apse on the east and a long hall on the west. Again it fell into Moslem hands, and further alterations were made; thus at the present day it presents a confusion of style and plan requiring the eye of a practised architect to distinguish the various additions.

The general effect is poor, for the interior is whitewashed and coarsely painted; only at the south end do any remains of the old glass mosaics still exist, and here are found close together the beautiful pulpit of parquetted wood-work from Damascus, and the new glass chandelier from Constantinople, the twisted columns of the Templars’ dining-hall, and the heavy basket-work capitals of the Byzantine basilica, while, in the vault beneath, is the huge monolith, which three men can scarcely girth, supporting the porch of the Temple-gate—a mixture of styles which cannot perhaps be found in any other building in the world.

Many chapters might be written on the High Sanctuary and its buildings, but space is wanting to describe the gates, the underground passages, the chambers and cisterns, which I again and again explored, and which had, already, been minutely examined and described by Major Wilson and Captain Warren. We must hasten therefore to another building, surpassing in interest even the Temple enclosure itself, namely, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.