Böckh finds 524.587 millimetres, nearly 232.55 lines. See Bertheau, c. 1, p. 83.]
Note III. The Armenians, in the various new edifices that they have built on Mount Sion, have found remains of walls, stones, reservoirs and cisterns of the most remote antiquity, generally at a depth of eighteen or even twenty feet below the surface, sometimes more. Before my arrival in Jerusalem, whilst digging for foundations they found a large quantity of small blocks of limestone of five and seven inches cube, dressed on every side, and so many in number that they employed them to build high and long unmortared walls, which to this day surround their property on the south inside the city. These stones were found collected together in one place, and were not scattered about: it is not impossible that they had been prepared to line the walls of a large pool. I say this because stones of this shape are now found in the pool of Bethesda, but in this reservoir they are wrought with more accuracy and uniformity. In my own time, in 1859, they discovered a pool, cut in the solid rock, which shewed however that the work had not been completed; it was 18 feet long, 10 broad, and 10 deep. In its neighbourhood were seen traces of conduits that they had begun to cut out in the rock.
On the same site I have examined a wall made of blocks of stone roughly squared, combined with others of a polygonal form; the size of the stones for the most part being from two to four cubic feet, and all the interstices between them on the two faces and inside being filled with small stones well fitted together without any trace of cement. At an angle where the stones were larger I observed that they were secured together by means of tenons and mortises of parallelepipedal form cut in the stone itself. The wall was about 5-1/2 feet broad by 6 feet high; but it was evident that it must have been mutilated at some time. I assign it to the age of the Jebusites.
Another wall, six feet broad, was composed of large irregular blocks of stone of from four to eight cubic feet. In it could be distinguished four rows placed one above the other, whose stones were fastened by clamps of iron or of stone, and in each was discernible more or less some trace of rude rustic work: in the interstices of the interior were inserted small stones well packed together without cement, so that the internal building of the wall formed a solid mass. To their discredit the Armenians do not trouble themselves about antiquities, and consequently take no pains to preserve such ancient remains as they meet with, but destroy or hide them, or avail themselves of the materials for the building of new walls.
Note IV. In the environs of the city, with the exception of the north and north-west, are frequently found walls, conduits, and scattered stones of large size, rusticated or not, and with or without marks of clamps; but they have been constantly broken up because of the want of will, and also of mechanical means, to make the most of them, or to remove them. Owing to this vandalism, the most precious remains of antiquity are daily disappearing from the soil of Jerusalem. Not seldom trunks of columns, capitals, pedestals, have been found, but some rude clown has broken them up, to be able the more easily to transport the fragments into the city. Sometimes old walls have been broken up by blasting, without any one's taking the trouble to preserve them, or even to delay their destruction, so as to allow of some examination of them. These cases are repeated daily on Mount Sion, on the east of the Mount of Olives, and on the western side of the valley of Kidron; but never in any part where it is not known from human memory, or received tradition, that there have been found remains of Jewish buildings, or large stones scattered over the soil.
On the north and north-west I have made various excavations in order to recover, if possible, one of the Herodian stones of twenty cubits (Josephus, Jewish War, V. 4, § 2); but after repeated and careful research I have failed to find a single one, I do not say of twenty cubits, but even of four: nothing is found there but rock and small unshapen stones, which do not however give one the idea that they have ever formed part of blocks of larger dimensions.
Note V. To facilitate the reader's understanding of the allusions in the course of the work, it is necessary that I should indicate the titles by which I characterise the different walls and stones which are found at Jerusalem.