The city of JerusalemConder, C. R. (Claude Reignier)
History
The city of Jerusalem
Conder, C. R. (Claude Reignier)
Jerusalem -- Antiquities; Jerusalem -- History
The walls of the city ran practically on the present line--Tancred’s
Tower[515] (now called “Goliath’s Castle”) on the north-west being
inside the Turkish line, while farther east the foundations of the
Crusader’s wall appear just outside the present one. They show that
kind of rubble set in hard cement which was used in the twelfth
century as the core of a wall, and which was faced with cut stones
drafted with a bold rough boss. At the north gate Sir Charles Warren
excavated the remains of the older entrance just outside the modern
one, and concluded that it represented the work of Crusaders who used
older materials; a stone was found with a Templar’s cross cut upon it,
which belonged to this older wall.[516] This is important, because the
remains in question have been rashly assumed to be those of the “second
wall” described by Josephus.
We have seen that, on the south, part of Sion was outside the city
(as in 680 A. D. also), when the Crusaders beleaguered Jerusalem. Mr.
Bliss,[517] however, discovered a wall which, starting from that of
Eudocia on Sion, was carried north on the east side of the hill to the
present wall, thus enclosing the Cœnaculum Church and the “House of
Caiaphas.” He supposes this to have been built by Frederic II. in 1229
A. D. There is no doubt that it is mediæval work of the twelfth or
thirteenth century, but it might be as late as 1243. A Norman moulding
has been built in among the stones, and they have the characteristic
diagonal dressing of Norman work. This wall is shown on the old map of
1308 A. D., and its ruins seem to have been still traceable in 1586,
according to Zuallardo’s picture. It may, however, have existed even
in the twelfth century, for Theodorich clearly describes a “barbican,”
or fortified out-work, on Sion, added to the main wall, with a ditch
and towers, which account answers well to the remains of this extra
wall.[518]
[Sidenote: THE CATHEDRAL]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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