Keeping Jerusalem’s Past Alive

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Jerusalem is not only one of the oldest cities in the world, it is one of the few cities which has been continuously inhabited for more than 40 centuries. From before 1850 B.C., when the first wall surrounded and defended Jerusalem, people have been living there, building homes and markets, temples and palaces, defense walls and water cisterns. Over the millennia, the city has been destroyed many times. The ancient structures were razed and covered by an accumulation of debris. Buildings which escaped destruction were incorporated into new constructions.

To walk the streets of Jerusalem is to walk through history. You encounter a well-built corner of a first century B.C. Herodian tower which stands not far from a complete Crusader church of the 12th century A.D. A street paved by fourth century A.D. Romans leads you to the Temple Mount and the dazzling beauty of the Moslem shrines built in the seventh century A.D. You can gaze into an excavation uncovering the city walls built by the Canaanites in the 19th century B.C. You can ascend wet and shivering from a water tunnel cut under the City of David by King Hezekiah when the Assyrians besieged Jerusalem in 701 B.C.

Yet Jerusalem was never a museum. It has always been a lively urban center and is today a modern and growing city. Those who make it their home appreciate the rich heritage of the past, but want to live in modern comfort and plan for a future of growth and expansion. The problem of preserving the remnants of the past without hindering the natural process of development is acute in Jerusalem. It is particularly sensitive because of the religious, symbolic and emotional value of Jerusalem to Jews, Christians and Moslems. The mixture of past and present has led to a keen awareness of the sometimes conflicting interests among planners, architects, and the municipal authorities, as well as within the general public. Imaginative ways are sought to preserve the past while permitting modern development.

Two of Jerusalem’s ongoing preservation projects represent different sets of problems and solutions. In the first project, the challenge was to incorporate the ancient remnants of the Street of the Jews into the framework of an inhabited, rebuilt section of the Old City. In the second project, the main problem was how to create an archaeological park on the Hill of Ophel around superimposed structures with different functions from many ancient periods.

The Street of the Jews is the southern part of the main north-south artery which crosses the Old City from 018Damascus Gate to Zion Gate. This artery intersects the main east-west artery that runs from Jaffa Gate to the Temple Mount. These two main streets, as well as the Old City’s roughly rectangular shape, probably date from the Roman Period (second–fourth centuries A.D.), when Jerusalem was rebuilt as a Roman colony named Aelia Capitolina. The north-south street, known to the Romans as the Cardo (the east-west street was called the Decumanus), is one of the most conspicuous features of the famous Madaba Map, a mosaic floor of a sixth century A.D. Byzantine church, discovered at Madaba, Jordan. The mosaic depicts the Cardo as a wide street flanked by two rows of columns.

The southern part of the Cardo, now called The Street of the Jews, is the main commercial street in the Old City’s Jewish Quarter. When the restoration of the Jewish Quarter began in 1967, special attention was given to the Street of the Jews because of its central location and commercial importance. The development plan for the area between this street and Habad Street, a parallel street to the east, was to be chosen from a variety of plans submitted by competing architects in a public contest. The winning plan suggested that neither of the two narrow streets should be widened, and that they should be covered with precast concrete arches to accentuate their oriental atmosphere. The arches were designed to sustain modern apartments that would be built over them.

Work on the project began with an archaeological dig, a common procedure in the Jewish Quarter, which is known to have been densely inhabited during several ancient periods. The excavation, headed by Professor Nachman Avigad, revealed many surprising finds including substantial fragments of the Cardo from the Byzantine period (fourth–sixth century A.D.). Avigad uncovered not only the paved street, but also some of the columns which formed the portico as depicted on the Madaba map. He also found some of the back walls of the shops that flanked the Cardo. Fragments of the road system were found not only under the Street of the Jews but also under Habad Street. The Cardo, according to Professor Avigad, was almost 75 feet wide, approximately five times wider than the typical street found in the Old City today.

The discovery of the Cardo required a change in the development of the Street of the Jews and its immediate vicinity. The planning architects^a decided to roof over the Cardo area—now below ground level—with a series of long, narrow, round arches which would preserve the ancient Cardo and convey a sense of its enormous width. Residences will be built above these arches and will not interfere visually with the atmosphere and dimensions of the Cardo.

The road plan also will be changed in light of the Cardo’s discovery. The street will be constructed on two levels with the upper level reserved for pedestrian traffic. The ancient Cardo pavement will be exposed on the lower level and sections of the arcade that once flanked the Cardo will be reconstructed.

Work is now in progress. We all await the final outcome of this imaginative solution to the double problem of preserving the past and permitting modern development.

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The other example of the same problem of modernization without destruction is the Hill of Ophel which lies outside the walls of the Old City, on a spur adjacent to the southeastern wall of the Temple Mount. The Ophel is the northernmost section of the City of David, the oldest inhabited part of Jerusalem. The name Ophel is used in the Bible (2 Chronicles 27:3, 33:14, Nehemiah 3:26–27, 11:21), but its etymology is obscure. Another way to describe the Ophel is as the area lying at the foot of the Temple Mount on the south. The Ophel has always been intimately connected with the religious center of the city, the Temple Mount.

Bordered on the north by the southern wall of the Temple Mount, on the west by the Turkish wall of the Old City, and on the south and east by the road encircling the Old City, the Ophel was excavated between 1970 and 1978 as part of the huge excavation project directed by Professor Benjamin Mazar around the Temple Mount.

The excavations on the Ophel revealed substantial remains from four periods. The topmost level dates from the Ommayad Period of the seventh-eighth centuries A.D. At that time, immediately after the Moslem 022conquest of the country, the Moslem rulers of the Ommayad Dynasty built both the Dome of the Rock and the El Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount, and surrounded the area at the foot of the Mount (the Ophel) with a series of huge palaces. Remnants of two Ommayad Palaces have been found at the Ophel.

Under the Ommayad palaces, the excavators uncovered excellently preserved houses of the Byzantine Period (fourth–seventh centuries A.D.). Some of these houses still stand two floors high. The houses were spaced relatively far apart and the area, though residential, was not densely inhabited.

Beneath the Byzantine houses, the archaeologists found remains from the Herodian period (first century B.C.–first century A.D.), a time of great architectural splendor and innovation. King Herod doubled the size of the Temple Mount by constructing massive retaining walls to form a vast rectangle; he then filled the area behind the walls. Above the fill he laid the pavement of the Temple courtyards; he surrounded the Temple Mount with a colonnade, he built the Royal Basilica on the southern side of the Temple Mount and he rebuilt the Temple.

The renovated Temple Mount, thus standing on a different, artificial level, required a rearrangement of the entrances from the surrounding areas. The problem was especially difficult on the southern side, where the fill was highest and the differences in elevation between the inside and outside of the Temple Mount retaining wall were greatest. Herod’s architects designed the entrance to the Temple Mount from the south as two systems of sloping subterranean passages leading from two sets of gates, known as the Hulda Gates, in the southern wall of the Mount and up to the surface of the Mount. Although these two gates have been filled and blocked, their outline is still visible in the southern wall of the Temple Mount.

The recent excavations exposed the organization of the area leading from the city up to the gates. The approach was over a large paved piazza. From there, the pilgrims would ascend a flight of monumental steps partly cut in the natural rock and partly built of well-cut large stones, in front of the western set of the Hulda Gates. A narrow road, built over a system of vaults, ran along the foot of the southern wall.

Beneath the Herodian level were the scant remains of the Hasmonean Period. The Hasmonean Period (second–first centuries B.C.) is represented mainly by a huge cutting in the bedrock, probably the remnants of a vast subterranean water reservoir.

As the excavation wound down, the archaeologists also discovered a corner of a monumental structure from the First Temple Period (first half of the first millennium B.C.). Work in the southeastern part of the excavation area, where this First Temple structure was found, will probably continue.

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The preservation of this area of ancient Jerusalem^b has two objectives—to strengthen the ancient structures, thus preventing any further deterioration, and to organize the area so that it can be understood by the interested visitor as well as by the archaeological scholar.

The first objective is relatively simple to achieve and involves reinforcing walls and building supporting arches. The second objective is more difficult. Structures from different periods and with different functions stand close to one another. Some of these buildings are in a poor state of preservation, and the mixture of levels is often confusing. To clarify the sequence some unimportant structures will be removed, while important examples of others will be partially reconstructed. Fallen columns of the Ommayad Palaces will be raised and placed in their original position. No beams will be placed over them, however, because we have no idea what this element looked like. The missing paving stones of the Herodian road, steps and piazza will be replaced and their original dimensions restored. The newly laid stones will be carefully selected and grouped to subtly distinguish the old from the new. In this way, each period will be represented by structures that will best convey its design and spirit.

The final step will be to create a pedestrian path that will wind its way in and around the reinforced and restored structures, taking the visitor from one structure to the other, from one stratigraphic level to another, and from one period to another.

These two projects—on the Street of the Jews and on the Hill of Ophel—reflect a growing awareness that while the past must be respected these ancient remains can be integrated into the fabric of modern life. In this endeavor, Jerusalem leads the way.

The author wishes to thank architects Peter Bugod and Shlomo Aronson for their cooperation in preparing this article and for permitting the use of photographs, plans and drawings. Photographs of the excavations are published with the permission of the excavation authorities. Photographers: Shlomo Aronson, Peter Bugod, Avinoam Glick, David Harris and Hanan Shafir.

Jerusalem is not only one of the oldest cities in the world, it is one of the few cities which has been continuously inhabited for more than 40 centuries. From before 1850 B.C., when the first wall surrounded and defended Jerusalem, people have been living there, building homes and markets, temples and palaces, defense walls and water cisterns. Over the millennia, the city has been destroyed many times. The ancient structures were razed and covered by an accumulation of debris. Buildings which escaped destruction were incorporated into new constructions. To walk the streets of Jerusalem is to walk through […]