How many gates are in Jerusalems Old City Walls? Around the nearly 3-mile-long fortified perimeter of the Old City, 11 gates watch over the city’s narrow streets and passageways, although only seven of these are now open. Of the 7 functioning gates that can be visited today—the Damascus Gate, the Jaffa Gate, the Lions’ Gate, the Dung Gate, the Zion Gate, Herod’s Gate and the New Gate—all but the last one were constructed, along with the current city walls, in 1538 by the Ottoman ruler Suleiman the Magnificent. The New Gate, found in the NW corner of the Old City, was created in 1887 to allow pilgrims and church officials more direct access to the Christian Quarter. The 4 remaining gates—the Single Gate, the Double Gate, the Triple Gate and, most famously, the Golden Gate—are all to be found along the southern and eastern walls of the Temple Mount. The Single Gate was built by the Crusaders, but the multiple-entry Double and Triple gates—also known as the Western and Eastern Huldah Gates, respectively—were originally built by King Herod and gave direct access to the Temple compound via underground passageways. All 3 gates were walled-up in 1187 after Saladin’s conquest of Jerusalem. The double-arched Golden Gate, prominently located in the middle of the Temple Mount’s eastern wall, dates to app. the 7th century A.D. Jewish tradition holds that the Messiah will enter Jerusalem through the Golden Gate on the Day of Judgment (cf Ezek 43). Christians believe an earlier version of this gate was where Jesus entered on Palm Sunday when he visited Jerusalem for the last time. To prevent the fulfillment of messianic prophecies, Suleiman the Magnificent finally sealed the gate’s portals in 1541 and a Muslim cemetery was created outside its walls. (From BAR Online)
Posted on: Wed, 02 Apr 2014 18:44:11 +0000
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