Page:Harry Charles Luke and Edward Keith-Roach - The Handbook of Palestine (1922).djvu/114

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JERUSALEM AND JAFFA PROVINCE
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Orthodox monastery of Abraham, in one of whose chapels the Church of England has the right to celebrate services; below this, again, is the modern building belonging to the Russian Palestine Society, which encloses important remains of the "Martyrium" of Constantine.

The oldest part of the Walls is that which is also the enclosing wall of the Haram area; much of this is Herodian, but is partly concealed by immense masses of débris. The walls received additions at the hands of the Romans and the Byzantines, and were comprehensively restored by Saladin, not a little of whose work survives. The city walls, apart from the Haram section, owe their present form in the main to the Ottoman Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent. The Gates, beginning with the Damascus Gate, and going eastwards are: the Damascus Gate, Herod's Gate, S. Stephen's Gate, the Golden Gate (an elaborate Byzantine structure within the Haram area, built by the Empress Eudocia in the fifth century and walled up by the Turks in 1530; the Gate through which the Palm Sunday processions entered the city during the Crusades), the Dung Gate or Gate of the Magharbeh, the Zion Gate, the Jaffa Gate, and the modern opening known as the New Gate. Adjoining the Jaffa Gate is the Citadel, a massive fortress of five mighty towers, probably occupying the site of Herod's Palace. The Citadel in its present form dates from the beginning of the fourteenth century, with sixteenth-century additions. But the drafted blocks of the foundations are of much earlier date, and the north-east tower probably corresponds with the tower of Phasaël of the Herodian structure. Much work has been done by the Pro-Jerusalem Society in repairing the Citadel and in clearing up the débris with which the interior and the moat were encumbered.

The Wailing Wall of the Jews is an ancient section of the western Haram wall, and is much resorted to for the purpose of prayer by pious Jews, particularly on the Sabbath, when the festal dress of the Ashkenazim offers a picturesque spectacle.