masonry barrier—probably a part of the ancient city wall—50 feet east of the Haram wall. The wall was built of large quarry-dressed stones, and was so thick that a hole made into it for 5 feet 6 inches did not go right through. A few feet north of the Golden Gate the wall began bending north-west, as though following the contour of the hill; and Warren was also led to suspect that the wall is a high one, extending upward through the debris to near the surface, since immediately above it, in the road, there are some large roughly-bevelled stones lying in the same line.[1]
In Nehemiah's description we are now immediately at "the ascent of the corner" (pinneh, a projecting angle). There is no corner now visible at the surface immediately north of the Golden Gate, and no ascent from a depth. But we have seen already that the northern cloister of the Temple would strike the east wall of the Haram a little north of the Golden Gate, and consequently here would be the corner of the Temple courts. We have also seen that the rock now shelves down to the north, for the valley from Herod's Gate came out here, and at 300 feet north of Golden Gate the rubbish is 125 feet in depth, so that from this low ground there would be an ascent in turning west. The wall itself would go up, ascending toward the ridge of the hill. There is no more likely spot for the elbow of the wall than that marked by the little building called the Throne of Solomon. The great depth of the valley here gave fearful height to the corner tower; and eastern imagination would be not unlikely to suggest that only Solomon or the demons could have built it.
Having reached "the ascent of the corner," one more band of workers brings us to the Sheep Gate, where the description began.
The Route of the Processionists.—Chapter xii. affords striking confirmation of the foregoing positions. At the
- ↑ "Recovery of Jerusalem," pp. 155-9.
