=The Walls and Towers on the North.= The account begins with the rebuilding of the Sheep Gate, which apparently stood immediately north of the temple (see map opposite p. 203) and was the way by which the sacrificial animals were brought to the sanctuary. Immediately to the west of this gate the native rock extends northward almost on a level.^{(56)} Hence at this point were built two strong guarding towers, standing apparently on the site occupied in Roman times by the famous Tower of Antonia. In the days of the divided Hebrew kingdoms, the upper end of the Tyropœon Valley, immediately west of the temple area, had been enclosed within the city walls. In Zephaniah 1:11 it was called, because of its peculiar shape, The Mortar. Elsewhere it bears the name of The Second Quarter (II Kings, 22:14, Zeph. 1:10). Through this low depression of the Tyropœon Valley ran the main street of the city. It passed through the Fish Gate which opens in the north to the great highway leading to Samaria. The Fish Gate was probably so named because in the adjoining market quarter the fishmongers sold their fish, which were doubtless brought in early times, as in the Roman period, from the Sea of Galilee. The exact course of the northern wall from this point is not entirely clear, for the ground over which it runs is nearly level and is to-day covered with buildings. The importance of this wall and the difficulty of completely restoring it is shown by the proportionately large number of workmen detailed by Nehemiah to repair it. It probably ran in a southwesterly direction to the Corner Gate, which was also called the Gate of the Old Wall. From this point it would seem that Nehemiah constructed a straight wall to the Ephraim Gate, which corresponds to the western Jaffa Gate of modern Jerusalem. =On the West.= Immediately south of the Ephraim Gate the city was especially liable to assault. Here a broad, or double wall was constructed. The remainder of the western wall^{(57)} has been traced by excavations. It ran due south along the brow of the western hill to a corner tower which measured forty-five feet each way and rose twenty feet from an outer ledge of rock. At this point the wall turned obliquely to the southeast, running to the Valley Gate, where it turned due east. The ancient Valley Gate was only eight feet ten inches wide on the outside. Its lower sockets are still in position. The wall on the east was nine feet thick. To the west of the Valley Gate was a tower the base of which measured about forty-five feet in each direction. This was probably the Tower of the Furnaces, so named because near by the potters baked their jars (_cf._ Jer. 18:2-4, 19:1-6).