Page:History of Art in Sardinia, Judæa, Syria and Asia Minor Vol 1.djvu/165

Topography of Jerusalem. 147 Jews, broke through the north wall fencing the temple and separa- ting it from the " upper city." ' How much easier to give additional strength to the narrower and more sharply outlined hill covered to the south, west, and east by the Tyropceon and Kedron, or Wady-sitti- Miriam valleys. These ravines, now half filled up with accumulated rubbish, were formerly much deeper, it having been shown that the bed of the former is, in places, from sixty-five to ninety-seven feet above the ancient level, and that of the latter from twenty-six to thirty- two feet. 2 Their sides, however, are still sufficiently steep to be difficult of access, and here and everywhere the rock has been scarped or cut perpendicularly downwards, and must at all times have offered a stubborn resistance to the enemy. The two ravines at their point of junction to the south form a kind of promontory, where the cliff has been hewn into a series of terraces which supported compact groups of houses belonging to the Canaanite colony ; each lane and stairway of which could be long defended in case of surprise. 3 As we have seen, the only side to be fortified was on the north, and here the neck of land connecting the hill with the mounts of Judaea was narrower than on the western ridge. From the culminating point of Mount Moriah a deep ravine, though partly filled with rubbish, but which has still a depth of forty feet, joined the Kedron by an oblique course on the west. Recent excavations have demon- strated the existence of this depression of the ground, in which lies the large pool of Birket Israil, Bethesda ; but as it runs under the substructures of the temple, the uncovered part only could be thoroughly explored (Fig. 109). No spring has yet been found on the west hill ; but there is one, the Virgin's Fountain, Ain-um- ed-Deraj, on the east side, which gives a constant supply, and which falls into the smaller Pool of Siloam 4 dug by Hezekiah. In 1 This is borne out by Josephus, who states, it is true, that the attack was directed against the west side ; but he immediately adds, facing the royal palace. Now, from the well-known position of the latter, this could only be the north-west angle of the wall. 2 According to Sir Charles Warren, the ancient bed of the Kedron is about thirty- nine feet below its present level at the south-east angle of the temple. 8 Respecting the traces visible on the rock in this deserted quarter of the ancient city, see Warren's Recovery of Jerusalem, p. 298; a work we shall make constant use of in the sequel of this essay. 4 Hezekiah had its water transmitted to the Pool of Siloam by a subterraneous conduit, which passed through Mount Moriah. That in the time of the Jebusites