Pagina-afbeeldingen
PDF
ePub

de Vogüé and M. Waddington in the course of last year, is derived from the remarkable confirmation which they afford to the received views of the topography and archæology of the Holy City, in the case of those sites which are of greatest importance in connection with its sacred history. I gratefully accept all the facts brought to light by Signor Pierotti, while I differ considerably from his inferences and conclusions. Here I shall state my own views, without entering into controversy.

As it would be impossible to do justice to all these discoveries in the course of a single lecture, I propose to confine my remarks to the site of the Temple and its contiguous fortress, Antonia. The situation of the former appears to be fixed beyond all possibility of doubt by the recent discovery by Signor Pierotti of the complete water system connected with the Hebrew temple, still existing as entire as when it was in daily use during the period of the Jewish commonwealth. The perfect preservation of this complicated system of aqueducts, drains, and reservoirs, is owing to the fact that they are all excavated in the solid rock, and therefore have not been affected by the demolition of the structures above, except so far as they may have become partially blocked up by the accidental falling in of débris of the ruined buildings.

Had history been silent on the subject, yet we should have been forced to conclude, from the account of the various sacrifices connected with the Jewish ritual, especially from the description of the numerous victims offered by Solomon at the Feast of Dedication, that there was a very complete system of sewerage connected with the Temple, introducing a large quantity of water to dilute the blood, which would otherwise have had a tendency to coagulate, and carrying off the blood and offal from the sacred precinct.

This, history tells us, was actually the case. The fullest account which is preserved of these waterworks is contained in the description of the Holy City and of the Temple worship, in a tract of Aristeas, who visited Jerusalem during the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus, and who describes a vast series of reservoirs beneath the area of the Temple, supplied by a copious spring of living water, and connected together by pipes and conduits extending over a space of five furlongs. There were many openings to these hidden depths from the area above, the secret of which was known only to the ministers of the Temple; and the supply of water was so managed as to flush the whole court, and carry off the blood of the numerous sacrifices. This description is fully confirmed by the Mishna and other Jewish authorities.

This language, which might formerly have appeared exaggerated, is now proved to be literally correct; for those cisterns have been actually explored, and the conduits and drains traversed in all directions by Signor Pierotti; so it is no more matter of conjecture, but of ascertained and positive fact.

It was the happy suggestion of Professor Willis, and a striking

example of that marvellous intuition for which he is so remarkable in investigations of this nature, that the hole in the Sacred Rock of the Moslems, under the well-known Dome of their Mosk, and the cave in that rock, now so familiar to all from the frequent descriptions of many travellers, but especially from the drawings of Mr. Catherwood, were the drain and cesspool of the Jewish altar; and that the round hole in the centre of the rocky pavement of that cave was the mouth of the channel by which the blood, poured out at the horns of the altar, flowed off, according to the Mishna, to the valley of the Kidron. That theory of Professor Willis really implied the condition that, if ever the hollow in the rock under that circular stone should be explored, there would be found an aqueduct for bringing in a supply of water on one side, and a drain for carrying off the blood and water on the other side. Now such is really proved to be the case; and Signor Pierotti has actually entered that lower cave by one channel, and quitted it by the other.

The supply of water, which no longer flows in these channels owing to various obstructions, was derived from the celebrated Pools of Solomon on the road to Hebron, south of Bethlehem, and was brought to Jerusalem by an aqueduct which still exists. It crosses the Valley of the Tyropoon by the artificial embankment which joins Mount Sion to the Temple Mount-the Bridge of the Jewish historian. It was then received into a well, sunk in the rock immediately in front of the Porch of El-Aksa, from whence it was distributed according to the exigences of the Temple worship; for the supply could be regulated according to the requirements of the season. The channel for the supply of the Temple ran northward from this well, under the wide causeway which leads from the north door of El-Aksa to the south gate of the Dome of the Rock, passes under the stairs opposite the Gate of Prayer, and so through the rock of the raised platform into the lower cave, as already described, which marks the site of the altar of the daily burnt-sacrifice. When this is once ascertained, the whole Temple can be laid out, with the help of the tract Middoth (Measures) in the Mishna; and it is a curious and interesting fact, that when the various parts of the Temple are distributed and adjusted according to these measures, the interval between the western wall of the Holy of Holies and the boundary-wall of the inner Temple, is exactly what it ought to be, supposing the western limit of the inner Temple to correspond with that of the raised platform of the Haram, which, as being cut in the live rock, has probably remained unaltered from Jewish times.

The drain from under the Jewish altar then runs northward for a distance of 120 feet, to a large double cistern, hollowed in the rock of the raised platform of the Haram. The Jewish authorities inform us, that the place where the victims were slaughtered, the hooks to which they were hung for the purpose of being flayed, and the marble tables on which they were dressed, and the parts appropriate for the sacrifice separated and prepared, was to the north of the great altar. Here, therefore, would be the greatest effusion of blood and other matter

connected with the slaughter of the beasts; and here, accordingly, were these large receptacles, with an arrangement for a fresh supply of water coming in from the west, the source of which has not yet been fully investigated.

From this point the sewerage took an easterly direction, and ran through a triple rock-hewn tank under the lower area of the Temple, about half way between the raised platform and the eastern wall, where it was further diluted by a fresh supply of water introduced by an aqueduct from the enormous tank outside the northern wall of the Temple Close, known as the traditionary Pool of Bethesda. The drain then passes under the wall of the Haram, and skirting it on the east side, along the narrow ridge now occupied by a Moslem burialground, descends steeply to the Fountain of the Virgin, in the valley of the Kidron, where, according to the Mishna, this sewerage from the Temple was disposed of as liquid manure to the market-gardeners.

So much of the water from Solomon's pools as was not required for the use of the Temple, flowed off from the well in front of El-Aksa to an enormous rocky reservoir, called the Royal Pool in the chronicles of the Crusades; from whence it ran by a channel traced by Signor Pierotti, to the same Fountain of the Virgin.

The next point of interest in these recent discoveries, is the secret passage which Herod the Great made, according to Josephus, for the purpose of connecting the fortress of Antonia with the eastern gate of the inner Temple-as the present text of the Jewish historian reads. Such a passage has been found by Signor Pierotti, extending from the Golden Gate in a north-westerly direction. But unhappily he has not been able to follow it along its whole length; only one section from the Golden Gate about 130 feet long, and another fragment of about 150 feet in length, being at present practicable.

It is true that this would connect Antonia with the eastern gate of the outer, not of the inner Temple. But in the first place, it is obvious that if the passage had been designed to communicate with the inner Temple, it would have run to the northern, not to the eastern gate, which was much more distant from the fortress; and further, as one object of Herod was to provide for his escape into the country, in case of a sedition in the city, that purpose would not have been answered by securing a hidden access only to the gate of the inner Temple. When then, it is considered that the change of a single letter would obviate these difficulties, and place the passage precisely where it is found, it is perhaps not taking too great a liberty with the text to propose to read rou weer iɛpou (the outer Temple) in the passage in question, instead of rou ower iɛpou (the inner Temple) as the text now stands.

The course of Herod's passage is of great importance for determining the position both of the eastern gate and of the fortress Antonia. It has been much disputed, whether that fortress stood entirely without the present area of the Haram, or entirely within it; or partly within, partly without. Light may be thrown on this question by an angle of

massive masonry, which has been found embedded in the rock towards the north-west corner of the great court of the Mosk, between the raised platform and that corner which presents along its north side a wall of solid rock rising to a height of from twenty to twenty-five feet. Indeed, the whole area in this quarter bears marks of the rock having been worked down to its present level by artificial means; and corroborates the account given by Josephus of the operations of the Jews under Simon the Maccabee, after having driven the Macedonian garrison out of the castle built on the Temple-mount by Antiochus Epiphanes. He tells us that they not only demolished the castle, but rooted up the very rock on which it was built, in order that they might never for the future be subjected to like annoyance. It was a great work, and occupied them three years and six months, although they worked at it incessantly night and day.

It is not likely, then, that this angle of solid masonry can have belonged to a building, not only destroyed to the foundation, but the very site of which was removed. It was more probably connected with the fortress Antonia of later times; and, if so, may serve to explain a perplexing passage of Josephus, who, in speaking of the portents which preceded the destruction of Jerusalem, says that the Jews, by the destruction of Antonia, had made the Temple quadrangular; while it was written in their oracles that the city should be taken when their Temple became quadrangular. It is vain to inquire to what oracle he refers; but it is obvious to remark that Antonia was not demolished by the Jews, for there is constant reference to it during the siege of Titus. Josephus can only refer to the destruction of some part of the buildings of Antonia contiguous to the Temple, and projecting into the area, the demolition of which made the enclosure quadrangular. The massive masonry lately discovered probably marks the south-east angle of this projection.

That the greater part of the fortress Antonia stood without the Temple Close seems to be proved by another important work which has lately been brought to light.

'This is a subterranean passage of noble proportions, partly cut in rock, and partly constructed of very solid masonry, which joins the Haram enclosure near the north-west angle, just east of the minaret, at a depth of about twenty feet below the surface of the rocky pavement of the court, or more than forty feet below the upper surface of the wall of rock, which, as has been already stated, bounds the Haram in this quarter. The direction of this stupendous gallery is northward, bearing slightly to the west. It extends in length 224 feet, passing under the Via Dolorosa. It is 22 feet wide, 29 feet high; covered in at the top with long slabs of stone. There is a door in the side wall, 17 feet high and 9 feet wide, blocked up with solid masonry; and high up in the side walls a row of small openings, as for windows, which seem to be of later date than the gallery itself. Two narrower passages open out of the main vault, one running east, the other west. At the south end of the passage, where it joins the Haram enclosure,

is an ancient door, now blocked up; but Signor Pierotti could discover no corresponding door in the rocky wall or pavement above, by which the vault might have had egress to the Temple Close. It is, therefore, very probably the entrance to Herod's secret passage, leading to the eastern gate already noticed, the direction of which, as far as it can be determined by the parts already explored, is towards this doorway.

The great gallery itself must certainly have belonged to the fortress Antonia, or, perhaps, rather to its predecessor, the Baris, or castle of the Asmonean princes, as it answers very closely to the description of the dark subterranean passage which Josephus mentions as the scene of the murder of Antigonus by the guards of his brother Aristobulus, under the tragic circumstances detailed by the historian. This passage was called Strato's Tower, and was so closely connected with the Baris that the sounds from the vault reached the ears of the high-priest, Aristobulus, who was lying ill in the castle. It was doubtless a covered way designed to connect one part of the fortress with another, for greater security in the case of siege. A little beyond the northern extremity of this passage, but near the surface of the ground, Signor Pierotti accidentally tapped what appeared to be a tank of rotten water, but it continued to flow on, and has never ceased, thus proving itself to be an aqueduct, probably part of that great work of King Hezekiah, recorded in the 2nd Book of Chronicles xxxii. 3, 4, 30, and referred to in his eulogy in the Book of Ecclesiasticus, xlviii. 17.

Another remarkable confirmation of the hypothesis that the fortress Antonia occupied the site determined by the subway just noticed, is found in the situation of the Roman arch, commonly known as "the Arch of the Ecce Homo," which spans the Via Dolorosa about 90 feet west of the point where that street passes over the subterranean gallery. It had long been doubted whether the arch in question was a Roman arch. That doubt has now been removed by the accidental discovery of the north side portal of the Gateway. It had been covered for centuries by débris, and was accidentally brought to light by a landslip, occasioned by an excavation being made in the neighbourhood, for the foundation of buildings connected with the establishment of the "Filles de Sion." This portal is unquestionably of Roman workmanship, as is also the larger arch; and there was no doubt a corresponding portal on the south side, which may still be discovered. Thus the gateway would resemble those ancient arches which are still found in Rome, imitations of which were not unfrequent in the provinces-which also furnished models for Temple Bar and the Marble Arch!

Such a gateway in this situation could be nothing else than the communication between the city and the fortress Antonia, or the successor of that fortress, which may possibly have been erected when Jerusalem was restored by Hadrian, under the name of Ælia Capitolina.

From this it results that the house of the Turkish Pasha occupies the site of the official residence of the Roman Governor, and that the

« VorigeDoorgaan »