Byzantine basilica. The dome, which is of wood, covered with lead without, is handsomely decorated in a manner similar to the dome of the Qubbet al-Sakhra. Its mihrab and pulpit have been referred to in § 1 above. A staircase in front of the narthex of the mosque leads down to the southern substructures and to the vestibule of the old Double Gate; "Solomon's Stables" are entered from the south-east corner of the Haram area.
Enclosing and overlooking the Haram on the west and south are a series of superb madrasas and other Saracenic buildings of the highest merit (cf. § 1 above); the Suq al-Qattanin (bazaar of the cotton merchants), which forms the principal entrance to the Haram area, is the most important of the old vaulted bazaars of Palestine and Syria, and was preserved from imminent destruction in 1919 through the efforts of the Pro-Jerusalem Society. The minaret in the north-western corner of the Haram rises on the remains of the Antonia tower.
The Church of the Holy Sepulchre[1] stands in the north-western corner of the old city, but is concealed from view by the many Patriarchates, monasteries, chapels and other ecclesiastical buildings, which cluster round it and only leave open to view the southern façade. Originally a group of small separate churches, rising on the holy sites in the fourth century and after, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre received its present form from the Crusaders, who erected one large Romanesque church to embrace the chapels covering the several sites. In 1799 a great part of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was rebuilt, only to be destroyed almost entirely by fire in 1808; another comprehensive rebuilding followed in 1810. Of its two conspicuous domes, the larger westerly dome, surmounting the Rotunda and the Sepulchre itself, was constructed of iron lattice girders under Russian auspices in 1868. The eastern dome is part of the Crusading building, and appears to have escaped
- ↑ The most recent English work on the Holy Sepulchre is Jeffery, A Brief Description of the Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem, and other Christian Churches in the Holy City, with some account of the mediaeval copies of the Holy Sepulchre surviving in Europe, Cambridge, 1919.
