Buried Cities and Bible Countries

by George St. Clair

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.”

WILSON’S ARCH.

(By favour of the Palestine Exploration Fund.)

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.

SOUTH WALL OF NOBLE SANCTUARY.