This article lists the gates of the Old City of Jerusalem . The gates are visible on most old maps of Jerusalem over the last 1,500 years.
During different periods, the city walls followed different outlines and had a varying number of gates. During the era of the crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem (1099–1291), Jerusalem had four gates, one on each side.[ citation needed ]
The current walls of the Old City of Jerusalem were built between 1533 and 1540 on orders of Ottoman Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, who provided them with seven gates: six new gates were built, and the older and previously sealed Golden Gate was reopened (only to be re-sealed again after a few years). The seven gates at the time of Suleiman were, clockwise and by their current name: the Damascus Gate; Herod's Gate; Lions' Gate; Golden Gate; Dung Gate; Zion Gate; and Jaffa Gate.
With the re-sealing of the Golden Gate by Suleiman, the number of operational gates was only brought back to seven in 1887, with the addition of the New Gate.
Until 1887,[ citation needed ] each gate was closed before sunset and opened at sunrise.
The seven gates at the time of Suleiman were: Damascus Gate; Golden Gate; Herod's Gate; Jaffa Gate; Lions' Gate; Silwan Gate (also known as Mughrabi Gate, and now as Dung Gate); and Zion Gate. After the re-sealing of the Golden Gate already in Suleiman's time, the number of operational gates was only brought back to seven with the addition of the New Gate in 1887.
English | Hebrew | Arabic | Alternative names | Construction year | Location | Status | Image |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Golden Gate | Sha'ar HaRahamim שער הרחמים "Gate Of Mercy" | Bab al-Dhahabi / al-Zahabi, "Golden Gate" باب الذهبي | A double gate, last sealed in 1541. In Arabic also known as the Gate of Eternal Life.[ citation needed ] In Arabic each door has its own name:
| 6th century | Northern third of eastern side | Sealed | |
Damascus Gate | Sha'ar Shkhem שער שכם "Nablus Gate" | Bab al-Amoud باب العمود | Sha'ar Damesek, Nablus Gate, Gate of the Pillar | 1537 | Middle of northern wall | Open | |
Herod's Gate | Sha'ar HaPerachim שער הפרחים "Gate Of The Flowers" | Bab al-Sahira باب الساهرة | Sha'ar Hordos, Flower Gate, Sheep Gate | 1537; greatly expanded in 1875 | East part of northern wall | Open | |
Dung Gate / Silwan Gate / Maghrabi Gate | Sha'ar HaAshpot שער האשפות "Gate Of Trash" | Bab al-Maghariba باب المغاربة | Gate of Silwan, Sha'ar HaMugrabim | 1538–40 | East part of southern wall | Open | |
Lions' Gate | Sha'ar HaArayot שער האריות | Bab al-Asbatt باب الأسباط | Gate of Yehoshafat, St. Stephen's Gate, Gate of the Tribes, St. Mary's Gate (باب ستي مريم, Bab Sittna Maryam) | 1538–39 | North part of eastern wall | Open | |
Jaffa Gate | Sha'ar Yafo שער יפו | Bab al-Khalil باب الخليل | The Gate of David's Prayer Shrine, Porta Davidi | 1530–40 | Middle of western wall | Open | |
Zion Gate | Sha'ar Tzion שער ציון | Bab al-Nabi Da'oud باب النبي داود | Gate to the Jewish Quarter | 1540 | Middle of southern wall | Open | |
New Gate | HaSha'ar HeHadash השער החדש | Al-Bab al-Jedid الباب الجديد | Gate of Hammid | 1887 | West part of northern wall | Open |
A smaller entrance, popularly known as the Tanners' Gate,[ citation needed ] has been opened for visitors after being discovered and unsealed during excavations in the 1990s.[ citation needed ]
Sealed historic gates, other than the Golden Gate, comprise three that are at least partially preserved (the Single, Triple, and Double Gates in the southern wall),[ citation needed ] with several other gates discovered by archaeologists of which only traces remain (the so-called Gate of the Essenes on Mount Zion, the gate of Herod's royal palace south of the citadel, and the vague remains of what 19th-century explorers identified as the Gate of the Funerals (Bab al-Jana'iz) or of al-Buraq (Bab al-Buraq) south of the Golden Gate). [1]
English | Hebrew | Arabic | Alternative names | Construction year | Location | Status | Image |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
"Tanners' Gate" [ citation needed ] | Sha'ar HaBursekaim שער הבורסקאים | 12th century [ citation needed ] | East part of southern wall | Open | |||
Excavators' Gate [ citation needed ] | Excavation Gate. (Eastern gate of the main Umayyad palace, attributed to Caliph Al-Walid I (705–715). Destroyed by an earthquake around 749, walled up when the Ottoman wall was built (1537–41), reopened and rebuilt by archaeologists led by Benjamin Mazar and Meir Ben-Dov in 1968.) [2] [3] | 705–715, 1968 [ citation needed ] | Wall south of Al-Aqsa Mosque | Open | |||
Single Gate [ citation needed ] | This gate led to the underground area of the Temple Mount known as Solomon's Stables | Herodian period | Southern wall of Temple Mount | Sealed | |||
Huldah Gates | Sha'arei Chulda שערי חולדה | Two gates:
| Herodian period | Southern wall of Temple Mount | Sealed |
The Western Wall, known in the West as the Wailing Wall, and in Islam as the Buraq Wall, is a portion of ancient limestone wall in the Old City of Jerusalem that forms part of the larger retaining wall of the hill known to Jews and Christians as the Temple Mount. Just over half the wall's total height, including its 17 courses located below street level, dates from the end of the Second Temple period, and is believed to have been begun by Herod the Great. The very large stone blocks of the lower courses are Herodian, the courses of medium-sized stones above them were added during the Umayyad period, while the small stones of the uppermost courses are of more recent date, especially from the Ottoman period.
The Old City of Jerusalem is a 0.9-square-kilometre (0.35 sq mi) walled area in East Jerusalem.
The Golden Gate or Gate of Mercy is the only eastern gate of the Temple Mount, and one of only two Gates of the Old City of Jerusalem that used to offer access into the city from the East side.
The Tower of David, also known as the Citadel, is an ancient citadel located near the Jaffa Gate entrance to the Old City of Jerusalem.
The New Gate is the newest of the gates of the Old City of Jerusalem. It was built in 1889 to provide direct access between the Christian Quarter and the new neighborhoods then going up outside the walls. The arched gate is decorated with crenelated stonework. The New Gate was built at the highest point of the present wall, at 790 metres (2,590 ft) above sea level.
Jaffa Gate is one of the seven main open gates of the Old City of Jerusalem.
The Tower of David is the northeast tower of the Citadel of Jerusalem. It has been identified as either the Phasael Tower or the Hippicus Tower described by Josephus. (The account of these towers in Josephus claims the tower of Mariamne as the biggest of the three)
Zion Gate, also known in Arabic as Bab Harat al-Yahud or Bab an-Nabi Dawud, is one of the seven historic Gates of the Old City of Jerusalem.
Lions' Gate, also St Stephen's Gate, is one of the seven open Gates of the Old City of Jerusalem. It leads into the Muslim Quarter of the Old City.
Herod's Gate is one of the seven open Gates of the Old City of Jerusalem. It connects the Muslim Quarter inside of the old city to the eponymic Palestinian neighbourhood of Bab az-Zahra, situated just outside. It is a short distance to the east of the Damascus Gate. Its elevation is 755 meters above sea level.
The Temple Mount, a holy site in the Old City of Jerusalem, also known as the al-Ḥaram al-Sharīf or Al-Aqsa, contains twelve gates. One of the gates, Bab as-Sarai, is currently closed to the public but was open under Ottoman rule. There are also six other sealed gates. This does not include the Gates of the Old City of Jerusalem which circumscribe the external walls except on the east side.
Zedekiah's Cave, also known as Solomon's Quarries, is a 5-acre (20,000 m2) underground meleke limestone quarry under the Muslim Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem that runs the length of five city blocks. It was carved over a period of several thousand years and is a remnant of the largest quarry in Jerusalem.
Following are timelines of the history of Ottoman Syria, taken as the parts of Ottoman Syria provinces under Ottoman rule.
The old city of Damascus is the historic city centre of Damascus, Syria. The old city, which is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, contains numerous archaeological sites, including some historical churches and mosques. Many cultures have left their mark, especially Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine and Islamic. In 1979, the historical center of the city, surrounded by walls of Roman era, was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. In June 2013, UNESCO included all Syrian sites on the list of World Heritage in Danger to warn of the risks to which they are exposed because of the Syrian Civil War.
The al-Buraq Mosque is a subterranean musalla next to the Western Wall, near the southwest corner of the Masjid al-Aqsa compound in the Old City of Jerusalem. This mosque is called al-Buraq Mosque because of a ring that is nailed to its wall where Muslims believe Muhammad tied the Buraq that carried him from the al-Haram Mosque to the al-Aqsa Mosque during the Night Journey.
Bab az-Zahra is an Arab neighborhood in East Jerusalem, north of the Old City. It is bordered by the American Colony to the north, Wadi al-Joz to the east, Herod's Gate and Damascus Gate on its south, and Mas'udiyyah and Mea Shearim to the west. Herod's Gate, which is called Bab az-Zahra in Arabic, lent its name to this neighborhood.
The Walls of Jerusalem surround the Old City of Jerusalem. In 1535, when Jerusalem was part of the Ottoman Empire, Sultan Suleiman I ordered the ruined city walls to be rebuilt. The work took some four years, between 1537 and 1541. The walls are visible on most old maps of Jerusalem over the last 1,500 years.
The Damascus Gate is one of the main Gates of the Old City of Jerusalem. It is located in the wall on the city's northwest side and connects to a highway leading out to Nablus, which in the Hebrew Bible was called Shechem or Sichem, and from there, in times past, to the capital of Syria, Damascus; as such, its modern English name is the Damascus Gate, and its modern Hebrew name is Sha'ar Shkhem, meaning Shechem Gate, or in modern terms Nablus Gate. Of its historic Arabic names, Bāb al-Naṣr means "gate of victory", and the current one, Bāb al-ʿĀmūd, means "gate of the column". The latter, in use continuously since at least as early as the 10th century, preserves the memory of a Roman column towering over the square behind the gate and dating to the 2nd century AD.
The Dung Gate, also known in Arabic as the Silwan Gate and Mughrabi Gate, is one of the Gates of the Old City of Jerusalem. It was built as a small postern gate in the 16th century by the Ottomans, first widened for vehicular traffic in 1952 by the Jordanians, and again in 1985 by the Israeli authorities. The Dung Gate is a main passage for vehicles coming out of the Old City and for buses headed to the Western Wall.
Thus for all intents and purposes, a ninth gate has been opened in the walls of Jerusalem.
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