Haifa, August 3.—The discoveries which have been made in Jerusalem during the last few years, and the conclusions at which those who have most deeply studied the subject have arrived in consequence, render it extremely desirable that a new or revised description of the Holy City should be inserted in the tourists' hand-books for Syria and Palestine. Travellers should be warned against dragomans who waste their time taking them to see Christian sites which have no relation to the facts they are supposed to commemorate, and possess no interest of any kind beyond the philosophical one that they illustrate the extraordinary credulity and superstitions which exist among the professors of Christianity in the nineteenth century, and which are certainly not exceeded, even if they are paralleled, by those of any heathen religion.
A Jerusalem hand-book, to be of any interest, should deal with the conclusions resulting from the excavations and researches of Sir Charles Wilson, Sir Charles Warren, Captain Condor, M. Clermont Ganneau, and others, during the last twenty years, and leave the traditions of the Latin and Greek churches almost out of the question altogether. Their researches have settled nearly all the topographical questions connected with ancient Jerusalem, which had previously been the subject of so much controversy and error, the doubts and difficulties connected with them arising from the fact that the city had been more or less destroyed and built over so many times that the original foundations of its walls and Temple could only be determined by extensive and laborious excavations; and in the course of these many collateral discoveries were made.
We learn from the publications of the Palestine Exploration Fund that these excavations were carried on under difficulties of every kind, in face of the opposition of the local government and in spite of continued fevers and lack of funds. The mines were driven to extraordinary depths; one at the southeast angle of the Haram being eighty feet deep, and another, near the northeast angle, being one hundred and twenty feet beneath the surface, where it reaches the solid rock. In consequence of the great depths, the scarcity of the mining frames, and the treacherous character of the débris through which the shafts and galleries were driven, the work was one of unusual danger and difficulty, requiring much courage and determination. Sir Charles Warren and the non-commissioned officers of his staff worked constantly with their lives in their hands, and often undertook operations from which the native workmen recoiled. The prudence and discipline of the party, however, secured valuable discoveries without an accident; and it is generally acknowledged that the results are of an importance which fully repays the labor and difficulty of the operations.
Sir Charles Warren was the officer who so courageously entered the desert of Sinai after the late Egyptian war, when he succeeded in capturing the murderers of Professor Palmer, Captain Gill, and Lieutenant Sharrington, and bringing them to justice. The result of his labors in Jerusalem, and that of his fellow-explorers, is a magnificent atlas, published last year by the Palestine Exploration Fund, containing a most elaborate series of maps, plans, elevations, and engravings, which reproduce the sacred city in all its most striking features, accompanied by a handsome volume of descriptive matter. We are thus able to base an account of the ancient topography of the city on data more exact than any previously acquired, and to read the ancient historic accounts by the light of ascertained facts, instead of guessing at probabilities by the aid of descriptions, which, however carefully written, are still, as all descriptions must be, vague where the student requires most exactitude, and deficient where he most wishes for details.
With the assistance of these publications a guide-book might be compiled which would enable the tourist to order his dragoman to take him straight to the places worth seeing, instead of—following on the track of exploded tradition—going with him like a sheep to those that are not. Much could be done to clear away existing confusion and prevent the perpetuation of error by a change in the received nomenclature, whereby things should be called by their right names so far as they are known, instead of by misleading appellations, derived from the records of early pilgrims or the later crusaders. I will take a few examples as illustrations. Not far from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre the guide shows the traveller an immense reservoir, now being filled up. This, he says, is the Pool of Bethesda, but it has only been thus designated since the fourteenth century. In the twelfth this pool was supposed to be a cistern near the Church of St. Anne, and in the fourth the site of Bethesda was shown at the twin pools, northwest of Antonia. The fact is that there are only two sites which may be regarded as possible for Bethesda, one being the spring of En-Rogel, which has an intermittent ebb and flow, and which is still frequented by the Jews, who bathe in it to cure various diseases. The other is the curious well immediately west of the Temple enclosure, now called Hamman Esh-Shefa, or the Healing Spring, a long reservoir reached by a shaft nearly one hundred feet deep. None of the pools which have at various times been selected by tradition have any supply of living water, and none can well be supposed to have any intermittent rise and fall, such as we understand by the moving of the waters.
Again, take the tombs of Absalom and St. James. There is nothing whatever to connect the first with Absalom. The singular style of its architecture shows that it cannot be the pillar “Absalom reared up for himself during his lifetime in the king's dale.” M. Clermont Ganneau has made excavations uncovering the bases and pedestals of the columns, all of which are purely Greek. Indeed, it is only since the twelfth century that it was called the tomb of Absalom at all. The author of the Jerusalem Itinerary calls it the tomb of Hezekiah, and Adamanus, in the seventh century, calls it the tomb of Jehoshaphat. It is possibly the monument of Alexander Jannæus spoken of by Josephus. So, too, the tomb of St. James has nothing to do with St. James; for there has lately been discovered on the façade an inscription in square Hebrew in so inaccessible a position as to have been only probably cut before the façade was completed, which mentions that the family of the Beni Hezir are buried there. This family of priests is mentioned in the Bible (1 Chron. xxiv. 15). The inscription seems to date from the first century before Christ.
The so-called tomb of David is a vault over which has been built a room, called the chamber in which the Feast of the Passover prior to the crucifixion is supposed to have taken place. Close to it is the Palace of Caiaphas, and in it is shown the spot where Peter stood when he denied his Master. Near it is the rock upon which the cock roosted when he crew. The “rock,” the “spot,” the “palace,” the “Cænaculum,” and the “tomb” all rest upon equally invalid authority. As regards the tomb of David, we know that it was within the walls, together with those of eight other Jewish kings. That the place was apparently well known as late as the time of Christ we gather both from the Acts and Josephus. It is remarkable that one undisputed Jewish tomb still exists in such a position as to have been certainly within the city of David. This is the so-called tomb of Nicodemus, and it is yet more remarkable that in its original condition, before it was partly destroyed, this tomb must have been just made to contain nine bodies, placed in kokim, or graves cut according to the oldest arrangement employed by the Jews. Josephus mentions as a peculiarity of the tombs of the kings that some of the coffins were buried beneath the surface, so as to be unseen even to those standing within the monument. Just such an arrangement exists in the tomb under consideration, the floor of which is sunk so that the graves on one side are on a lower tier. It seems, therefore, quite possible that the Church of the Holy Sepulchre preserves the monument of the nine chief kings of Jerusalem. Of course, tradition, with its usual ignorance, places “the tombs of the kings” on the hill of the upper city, where your guide takes you to see them, and where there are no ancient tombs at all, the tombs there being of a date not earlier than the first century before Christ. A fine sarcophagus, with an Aramaic inscription, stating that it held the body of a certain Queen Sara, was discovered in them. Though called by a wrong name, they are, nevertheless, well worth visiting. As it is supposed by some authorities that Helena, Queen of Adiabene, was also buried here, they might more properly be called the tombs of the queens.
But the really great work which recent investigation has accomplished has mainly reference, not so much to such details as these, which must always remain more or less matters of speculation, as to the settlement of controversies affecting the topographical questions connected with ancient Jerusalem. First, in regard to points upon which all are now agreed. There is no doubt about the Mount of Olives and the brook Kedron. It is agreed that the Temple stood on the spur immediately west of the Kedron, and that the southern tongue of this spur was called Ophel. It is also agreed that the flat valley west of this spur is that to which Josephus applies the name Tyropæan, though there was a diversity as to the exact course of the valley, which has now been set at rest by the collection of the rock levels within the city. It is also agreed by all authorities that the high southwestern hill, to which the name of Sion has been applied since the fourth century, is that which Josephus calls the upper city, or upper Market Place. The site of the Pool of Siloam is also undisputed, and certain natural features have been determined, which serve as data on which to construct the walls of the ancient city and fix the site and area of the Temple enclosure in the time of Herod. There is still some controversy in regard to the exact position and course of the city walls prior to its destruction by Titus, but this is chiefly maintained by those who are fatally affected in their religious sentiments. There is also a difference of opinion in regard to the area of the Temple building. Practically, however, this point has been settled by the great weight of authority on one side, which affirms that the present Haram enclosure, in which are situated the mosque of Omar, and the sacred stone, represent the area of Herod's Temple, only one or two standing out for a restriction of this area. If the Turkish government would only allow explorations to be made under the platform of the dome of the rock, the very rock upon which Abraham is supposed to have been ordered to sacrifice Isaac, and if the examination of the closed chambers known to exist on the north and east sides of this platform could be carried out, the controversy might be set at rest by actual discovery. Of the Temple of Solomon little is known, though it is possible that the great scarps in the present British cemetery may be as old as the time of David, or the eleventh century before Christ. They are, without doubt, the oldest existing remains in Jerusalem, and formed part of the ramparts of the upper city. Meantime, the most interesting spot which it contains, whether for Jew, Christian, or Mohammedan, is that mysterious dome of the rock, with its gorgeous mosque covering the sacred stone, which Christ himself must have regarded with as much veneration in his day as the adherents of the two other religions, so widely opposed to the one of which he was the founder, do now.