Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 13.djvu/666

 638 JERUSALEM above the interior court being about 30 feet. On this scarp the modern barracks stand, and a fosse 60 feet deep and 165 feet wide is still traceable outside the rock on the north. A valley bed 100 feet below the level of the Haram court ran across the north-east portion of the area into the Kidron ; and south of this the remains of a scarp running east and west have been discovered, but are not as yet completely explored. The prolongation of this scarp east wards cuts the east wall of the Haram at the point 1090 feet from the south angle, at which the change in the character of the masonry above explained probably occurs. The evidence thus obtained seems to indicate that an area of about 7| acres has been added to the ancient enclosure on the north-east to give it the present quadrangular form, and the rougher masonry on the east appears to have belonged to the city wall constructed by Agrippa and not to the older wall of Herod s temple. At the south-west angle of the Haram enclosure are the remains of an ancient arch (Robinson s arch), 42 feet span, belonging to a bridge across the Tyropoeon, the west pier of which Captain Warren discovered, as well as the fallen voussoirs, lying on a pavement 40 feet beneath the surface, while under the pavement 20 feet lower was found the voussoir of a former bridge on the same site (cf. Jos., B. J., i. 7, 2). At the south-east angle of the enclosure Captain Warren found beneath the surface remains of an ancient wall of finely drafted masonry abutting on the east ram part of the Haram, and here some unexplained marks or letters in red paint were discovered on the lower stones. The buried wall runs southward for 250 yards at a height of 70 feet, and is held to be part of the wall of Ophel. The base of a great projecting tower was also laid bare, and identified by the discoverer with the tower of N&quot;eh. iii. 25. Another noticeable discovery was the fact that an ancient aqueduct is intersected by the west Haram wall, which must consequently be more recent than the rock tunnel thus destroyed. The facts thus ascertained allow of the identification of the great walls still standing with those which supported the outer cloisters of the temple enclosure in the time of Elerod s reconstruction of the edifice. The original area of Solomon s temple enclosure was doubled by Herod (B. J&quot;., i. 21, 1), who took away the ancient foundations and made a quadrangle extending from the fortress of Antonia to the royal cloister, to which a great bridge led from the upper city (B. J., vi. 6, 2), while the eastern limit was formed by the Kidron ravine, the Ophel wall joining the plateau of the temple at the south-east angle (Ant., xvMl, 5 ; B. J., v. 4, 2). The scarped rock at the north-west angle of the Haram, with its outer fosse dividing the temple hill from Bezetha, answers exactly to the description by Josephus of the tower of Antonia (B. J., v. 5, 8) and thus serves to identify the north-west angle of the ancient enclosure with the corre sponding angle of the modern Haram. The correspondence of the south-west angles of the two areas is established by the discovery of the great bridge, and that of the south east angles of the same by the exploration of the Ophel wall. The northern boundary of Herod s temple probably coincided with the scarp already described, 1090 feet north of the south-east angle. The area was thus, roughly speaking, a quadrangle of 1000 feet side, from which the citadel of Antonia, as described by Josephus, projected on the north-west (cf. B. J., vi. 5, 4). The natural water-supply of Jerusalem is from the Virgin s spring already noticed, which comes out from be neath the Ophel ridge in a rocky cave extending 12 feet from the face of the hill, and reached by flights of twenty- eight steps. The water flows with an intermittent action, rising from beneath the lowest steps, at intervals varying, according to the season and the rainfall, from a few hours to one or even two days. From this spring a rock-cut tunnel 1708 feet in length leads through the Ophel ridge to the Pool of Siloam (now Birket Silwdn), which is a rock-cut reservoir with masonry retaining-walls measuring 52 feet by 18 feet, having a rock-cut channel leading away from it to a larger pool formed by damming up the flat valley bed with a thick wall of masonry close to the junction of the Kidron and the Tyropoeon. 1 A rock-cut shaft like the great tunnel a work of immense labour leads from the spring west wards to an entrance from the surface of the ground 120 feet above&quot; and 180 feet west of the spring. The rock tunnel was known in the 17th century, but the shaft which formed a secret entrance to the one spring of Jerusalem was discovered by Captain Warren. The water of Siloam was originally sweet, but has been fouled and made bitter since the 12th century. From the reservoir it runs south wards to the Bir Eyiib already noticed, a well 125 feet deep. The remaining reservoirs of Jerusalem are fed by aque ducts and by the rains. West of the city is the rock-cut Mamilla pool. In the upper part of the valley of Hinnom is BirJcet es Sultan, constructed in the 12th century. Since the 14th centur} 7 these two tanks have been erroneously named the Upper and Lower Pools of Gihon. Inside the city is the Patriarch s Pool near the west (the ancient Amygdalon or &quot; Tower Pool,&quot; B. J., v. 11, 4), while imme diately north of the Haram are the Twin Pools made by roofing in part of the ancient fosse, and the Birket Isrdtl, measuring 360 by 130 feet, and apparently constructed after the great destruction of 70 A.D. The Twin Pools were identified in the 4th century with Bethesda, but since the 12th that name has been given to the Birket Israil. The site of Bethesda is still doubtful. Three aqueducts supplied the city, one of which, con structed by Pilate (Ant., xviii. 3, 2), led from the so-called pools of Solomon, 7 miles distant, to the temple, and still conveys water when in repair. Its course appears on the map ; the second from the same locality probably fed the Birket Mamilla, but is now lost ; the third from the north collected surface drainage and led to the temple enclosure underground, a distance of 2000 feet only. The great reservoirs in this enclosure, about thirty in number, were capable of holding a total supply of 10 million gallons of water. (c. 11. c.) II. ANCIENT JERUSALEM. Up to the time of David the strong fortress of Jerusalem remained in the hands of the ancient Canaan ite inhabitants who were known as Jebusites. 2 The city was deemed impregnable, but its conquest was one of the first exploits of David, when he became king of all Israel, and had need of a capital that should serve as a base for his military operations and a centre of union for Judah and Israel Lying on the frontier line between his own tribe of Judah and the difficult country of Benjamin, which had been the centre of the struggle with the Philis tines since the fall of Shiloh, Jerusalem was admirably adapted for these purposes. The Jebusites were not expelled, but continued to live side by side with the Hebrews (Josh. xv. 63; Judg. i. 21 ; 2 Sam. xxiv. 18; A very ancient Hebrew inscription, referring to the construction of the tunnel, was discovered in June 1880. The date and many points in the reading and interpretation are still obscure. 2 In Judg. xix. 10, 1 Cliron xi. 4, the city itself is called Jebus; but as this part of the Book of Judges (as well as Josh. xv. 8, xviii. 28) is probably of late date, and the older records use the name Jerusalem, it is not safe to regard Jebus as the earliest name of the city. The reference to Jerusalem in Judg. i. 7 seems to be an interpolation, and Josh. xv. 63, Judg. i. 21 to refer to the time -after David.