Recent visitors have felt themselves perplexed by conflicting statements as to the Bible sites--“Two Zions, two Temple areas, two Bethanys, two Gethsemanes, two or more Calvarys, three Holy Sepulchres, several Bethesdas.”[1] The statement is perhaps an exaggeration, and the discrepancies as a whole are by no means recent, being due to ancient misunderstandings or conjectures. Tradition is overlaid by tradition in the long period of at least 3,400 years since Jerusalem first became a royal city of the Amorite. Jewish traditions were followed by those of Christians and Moslems, who were alike ill informed as to ancient history. The Crusaders brought in new ideas, and often rejected those of the Eastern Churches. The Franciscans, after 1300 A. D., were deprived of some churches, and the Pope sanctioned the transference of old sites to other places. It is true that some literary critics have recently tried to prove that the “city of David” was not a royal city on the mountain top, but a mere hamlet on the tail of the Temple ridge. They have unfortunately--as unconscious heirs of the prejudices of Voltaire--been misled (as in so many other cases) by fixing on a single allusion, while ignoring other accounts, and dismissing the statements of Josephus as merely “traditional”; but they have not given due consideration to the results of exploration, and they have shown but slight acquaintance with the scientific study of ancient architecture.[2] As a rule, however, it is not the modern theorist but the ancient pilgrim who is responsible for the confusion; and the agreement reached already, on the more important questions of topography, has been the outcome of actual research and of monumental studies. No one seems now to doubt that the Temple stood on the top of the eastern ridge. The positions of Olivet and Siloam have never been questioned. Herod’s palace is placed by all in the north-west corner of the upper city, near the so-called “Tower of David,” and Antonia on the rock of the present barracks at the north-west corner of the Temple courts. There was a time when the differences of opinion were much greater. One theorist even went so far as to assert that Hebron was the true site of ancient Jerusalem. But the topography has hardly been changed since Nehemiah’s age. The two great citadels are still held as Turkish strongholds, the Temple is still a sacred enclosure, the upper and lower markets are still where they always were, and even the dung-hills outside the wall are close to the “Dung Gate” of Hebrew times. We may sweep aside the misconceptions due to vague literary statements, and found ourselves not on paper, but on rock and stone, on contemporary inscriptions and architectural remains. [Sidenote: EXCAVATIONS]