Jerusalem Explored, Volume 1—Text: Being a Description of the Ancient and Modern City, with Numerous Illustrations Consisting of Views, Ground Plans and SectionsPierotti, Ermete
History
Jerusalem Explored, Volume 1—Text: Being a Description of the Ancient and Modern City, with Numerous Illustrations Consisting of Views, Ground Plans and Sections
Pierotti, Ermete
Jerusalem -- Antiquities; Jerusalem -- Description and travel
As we go out of the eastern gate, called S. Mary's and also S. Stephen's
Gate, we see on the left-hand a pool, by name _Birket-Hammam
Sitti-Mariam_ (the Pool of the Bath of our Lady Mary). The origin of
this name is that it receives the waters of the ditch outside the
eastern wall, and then by a conduit supplies a bath inside the city,
near the Church of S. Ann. This bath is a favourite with the women of
Jerusalem, who attribute to it miraculous virtues; but unfortunately
they can only profit by them for a few days in the year, as the
neighbouring cisterns and the pool, instead of retaining the water,
allow it to escape; since the reservoir and conduits are in a ruinous
condition, and the proprietor of the bath is too blind to his own
interest to repair them.
On the right of the gate, as we go out, we see a Saracenic monument,
which is daily falling to ruin[532]. Some of the Arabs believe that it
was built over a sepulchre; others, that it is a monument to mark the
spot where the Khalif Omar pitched his tent after traversing the Valley
of Jehoshaphat. Whichever be the true account, it ought to be preserved.
But the Mohammedan makes no effort to arrest the ravages of time.
Hence a large portion of the Kidron valley is seen at a glance,
especially that part which is called the Valley of Jehoshaphat[533], a
name derived from the tomb attributed to that king, which is covered
with earth on the east of that of Absalom. Adamnanus, the historian of
Arculf's travels, is the first to mention the Valley of Jehoshaphat, and
his description agrees with that given by Willibald, another author of
the eighth century[534]. The celebrity of this valley is due to a
belief, widely spread among both Christians and Mohammedans, that it
will be the scene of the Last Judgement. This has arisen from the words
of the prophet Joel, "I will also gather all nations, and will bring
them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there
for my people and for my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among
the nations, and parted my land"[535]; and again, "Let the heathen be
wakened, and come up to the valley of Jehoshaphat, for there will I sit
to judge all the heathen round about[536]." In this same valley many of
the ancient Jews, both high and low, have been interred, and the custom
still continues; for they possess a cemetery extending along the eastern
bank of the valley, while the two on the western belong to the
Mohammedans. It appears that the Christians have also used the place for
the same purpose, since, in November 1856, when the Greeks were
cultivating a plot of ground on the western bank of the valley, a short
distance from the tomb of Mary, they found a well-executed slab of
Palestine breccia, on which a cross and the following words were carved:
"The monument which contains Stephen and Juliana." On its removal the
two skeletons were found. As the work went on, fragments of stone, stone
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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