Buried Cities and Bible Countries

by George St. Clair

Solomon’s Stables.—Under the Haram area, at the south-eastern part, are the vaults known as Solomon’s Stables—thirteen rows of vaults of a variety of spans. They were used as stables by the Crusaders, and the holes in the piers by which the horses were fastened may still be seen. The name of Solomon’s Stables is supposed to have been given by the Crusaders, who may, however, have been guided by some earlier tradition. The vaults are in part ancient and in part a reconstruction, probably about the time of Justinian (sixth century A.D.).

The Jews’ Wailing Place.—Outside the Haram, on the west, and not very far from the south-west corner, is the Wailing Place of the Jews. From the Jaffa Gate we may reach it by going down David Street and through the fruit bazaar, and then turning through a by-lane. The Wailing Place is a narrow court, in which the temple rampart happens to be free and exposed in the Jews’ quarter. Every Friday the court is crowded with Jews who come to read and pray, and bemoan the condition of their temple, their holy city, and their scattered people. The scene is striking from the great size and strength of the mighty stones, which rise without door or window up to the domes and cypresses above, suggesting how utterly the original worshippers are cast out by men of alien race and faith. Here we may see venerable men reading the Book of the Law, women in their long white robes kissing the ancient masonry, and praying through the crevices of the stones, Russian Jews, Spanish Jews, German Jews, men, women, and children, with gray locks, or blue-black hair, or russet beard, and dressed variously, according to their country—strange and unique is the spectacle! “It reminds one forcibly” (says Conder) “of the unchanged character of the Jews. After nineteen centuries of wandering and exile they are still the same as ever, still bound by the iron chain of Talmudic law, a people whose slavery to custom outruns even that of the Chinese to etiquette, and whose veneration for the past appears to preclude the possibility of progress or improvement in the present.”

Pools and Fountains of Jerusalem.—Jerusalem is at present chiefly supplied with water by its cisterns. Every house of any size has one or more of them, into which the winter rains are conducted by little pipes and ducts from the roofs and courtyards. These private cisterns are generally vaulted chambers with only a small opening at the top, surrounded by stonework, and furnished with a curb and wheel. Many of them are ancient.

But besides these covered cisterns in the houses and courts, there are many large open reservoirs in and around the city. In the upper part of the Valley of Hinnom, west of the city, is the Birket el Mamilla, often called the Upper Pool of Gihon. Lower down in the same valley, and not far from the south-western angle of the city wall, is the Birket es Sultan, frequently called the Lower Pool. Because these pools are clearly related to one another as upper and lower, it has been usual to assume that they are upper and lower pools of Gihon, which seem to be referred to in 2 Chron. xxxii. 30, and elsewhere. But although the Sultan’s Pool has been called Gihon from the fourteenth century downwards, it is known to have been constructed by the Germans only two centuries before, and the word Gihon means a spring-head. From the Sultan’s Pool we may ride down the deep valley, on the south bank of which are the traditional Aceldama and the tombs of many Christian pilgrims, till we come to Bir Eyub (Joab’s Well), where the Valley of Hinnom unites with the Valley of Kedron. The Crusaders, who were never too well informed, identified Joab’s Well with the Biblical En Rogel. From this place we ride northward to the junction of the Kedron with the Tyropœon, and there, in a verdant spot, we find the Pool of Siloam, with dry stone walls and a little muddy water. With the village of Siloam on our right, we ride up the Kedron Valley some 300 yards, and arrive at the Fountain of the Mother of Stairs, also called the Virgin’s Fountain. Descending by a flight of sixteen steps we reach a chamber, its sides built of old stones and its roof formed of a pointed arch. Then going down fourteen steps more into a roughly hewn grotto, we reach the water. Mejr ed Deir states that the water of this fountain was a great test for women accused of adultery; the innocent drank harmlessly, but the guilty no sooner tasted than they died! When the Virgin Mary was accused, she submitted to the ordeal, and thus established her innocence. Hence the spring was long known as the Fountain of Accused Women. Dr Robinson imagined that this was the true Bethesda, because the water is considered to possess healing virtue, and every day crowds of men and women, afflicted with rheumatism and other maladies, descend the steps and wait for the moving of the waters. The flow is intermittent—due, it is supposed, to a natural syphon—and the waters rise suddenly, immersing the folks, fully clothed, nearly up to the neck.

The water wells up in the cave, and when it has attained a height of 4 feet 7 inches runs away through a passage near the back, into a small tunnel, and goes to supply the Pool of Siloam.

About 100 yards north-east of St Stephen’s Gate is the Pool of My Lady Mary, outside the walls.

Within the city, on your left as you enter by St Stephen’s Gate, is the Birket Israil, Pool of Israel, the traditional Pool of Bethesda (but only so since the twelfth century). It is now a receptacle for ashes and rubbish of all kinds; but it has at some time been used for water, for Warren found the bottom lined with concrete 16 inches thick.

Sometimes the Virgin’s Fountain is spoken of as the only spring of living water at Jerusalem, but it is possible, as suggested by Warren, that another existed at the Hammam esh-Shefa, or Bath of Healing, in the Tyropœon. The entrance to the fountain is by a narrow opening in the roof of a house behind the bath.

We need only mention further the Pool of Hezekiah, a large reservoir which lies in the centre of a group of buildings, in the angle made by the north side of David Street and the west side of Christian Street. It is stated that a subterranean conduit from the Birket el Mamilla passes underneath the city wall near the Jaffa Gate, and supplies both the Pool of Hezekiah and the cisterns of the citadel.