Subtle Stone
Jerusalem, for the most part is built from stone quarried nearby. The stone is a pale limestone and has been used since ancient times. At sunrise and sunset it casts a beautiful pink glow over all the buildings. This shows the approach to the walls of the old city and the Jaffa Gate in the distance. It has been the site of many important events in history. The tall walls that surround the city were built in 1537 by the Ottoman Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent though the stones of the walls tells a much more complicated and subtle story.
The large stones you see are called ashlars and it’s quite impressive that in ancient times buildings of such large magnitude were built using mostly human power. What you see is just inside the Jaffa Gate, called the Citadel of David. It’s a misnomer that we’ll get to later. On the left the outside wall shows several different sizes and shapes of stone. At the bottom you can see large ashlar stones from thousands of years of military architecture. The lower level is from Hasmonean times (better known as the Maccabis of Chanukah fame). That would be 2nd century BCE. Above that are Crusader walls from around 11th or 12th century CE and notice they are angled to make it more difficult for invaders to scale them and to the right you see a modern wall that encloses a dry moat, also to deter invaders as well as to close in an earlier much wider moat that served as a marketplace. In the center you can see how Suleiman’s walls incorporate the Hasmonean walls that surround the entirety of the old city. On the right inside the citadel the multiple layers continue and bring us to modern times including a glass installation left over from Dale Chihuly’s “Light on Jerusalem” exhibit from 2000. It was spectacular and you can check it out at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svi-snoYyYk
We can see a combination of Herodian (from Roman times), Byzantine (5th century), Crusader (12th century), and Modern times in the stone walls and arches inside the citadel. Notice the cannon balls in the middle image and the slits for shooting out at enemies on the right. The top was widened for machine guns when the old city was in Jordanian control as they could shoot into the areas controlled by Israel from 1948 to 1967 and they did with regularity.
Remains of Herod’s palace recently excavated, the inside of the Mamluk mosque contained within the citadel, and one of the works left from Chihuly’s 2000 exhibit. You might ask, how do we know what a pile of stones is or how old it is. Sometimes we can’t know for sure. In the case of Herod’s palace, another palace in another location is definitely identified as one of his palaces has the identical layout. The stones can be identified through carbon dating and DNA from the mortar that’s left. In the center image we know this is a mosque because it has the Mirhab (the wall niche to show which direction to face when praying towards Mecca) and the minbar (elevated staircase from which the Imam addresses the congregation). This one is very small and not as elaborately decorated as most. We’ll see more elaborate mosque in our class in a few weeks including the interior of the Dome of the Rock.
Why is it called the Tower of David? Well it actually has nothing to do with King David. It is a historical mistake made by Byzantine Christians who confused Herod’s palace with David’s palace. He never set foot on the site as far as we know. It was built in the 1st century CE and David lived in the 11th or 12th century BCE. However, as these myths go it became such an identified symbol with King David that it appears on coins, ritual objects, etc. Though the name of the citadel hasn’t changed the museum is an amazing place to learn about this complex part of the world that has meaning for everyone. If you want to see more about the old city of Jerusalem there are several blog posts from previous visits.
Being a citadel this is the view from the top. For those who do not know, the old city is divided into four quarters; Armenian (where the citadel is located), Jewish, Muslim, and Christian. It has been and remains a holy place for all and a contested one too.
Looking ffrom the “new” city to the old city in the distance you are looking at the Christian quarter on the right and if you follow your eye down from the crane on the left you will see the Tower of David and the walls of the old city to give you a little perspective.
Israel has a new National Library building. The library was founded in 1892 and by law it receives and preserves a copy of all printed material published in Israel in any language. The library presently holds over 5 million books, periodicals, rare manuscripts, personal and institutional archives, newspapers, maps, and photographs. It also houses the National Music Archives and so it collects the national soundtrack. The new building is built in the form of a stone block with a concave upper surface resting on a glass platform. Its stone walls are hewn like the ashlar stones but using state of the art technology. The building was designed by the Swiss Herzog and de Meuron architecture firm and completed in 2023. It evokes the shape of an open book or scroll.
The central reading room has direct and indirect light and the day we were there many people were engaged in research and enjoying the open spacious space. In dark temperature and light control exhibit spaces we got to see rare manuscripts, Jewish and Christian bibles all hand scribed from before Gutenberg, Qurans, The Hadith (story of the life of Mohammed) Passover Haggadahs (some with adaptations with the time), etc. There were early printed volumes as well. In the exhibits it was wonderful to see tours in many languages including Arabic, English, and Hebrew. The exhibit spaces are only lit from the outside by the tiny shaped windows you see in the photo below and special lighting to preserve the texts and they change the pages periodically so that light doesn’t damage them. That means each time one visits the library, a new page can be seen.
The outside windows are very small and if you’re in the ancient art history class this should look familiar to you as we learned about the first writing in cuneiform. In the middle image you are looking at a section of the Western Wall, the holiest site to Jews. The outlines show you what inspired the architects and designers for the library windows.
Outside is a sculpture by Micah Ullman entitled “Letters of Light”. There are 18 blocks of stone, each sculpted with a letter of the Hebrew alphabet. The sunlight passing between the stones draws the letters on the plaza floor in a pattern of light and shade. The resulting patterns draw not only the Hebrew letters but the Arabic and Latin letters as well. In the center of the circle is an underground space. When you look through the glass, shadows shift and create new shapes. The glass letters are the Hebrew Alef, Arabic Alif, and Latin A all the first letters of their respective alphabets.
If you have visited Berlin it’s likely you have seen Micah Ullman’s “Empty Library” at Babelplatz in front of Humboldt University (where Albert Einstein and Sigmund Freud studied) and the site of book burnings during the Nazi time. More than 20,000 books were burned there. “Empty Library” is a small glass opening in the plaza, and when you look down you see empty bookshelves as far as the eye can see. Heinrich Heine’s inscription says something like first they will burn the books, then they will burn the people. Micah Ullman was the perfect artist to create the “Letters of Light” in Jerusalem for the new National Library.
Departing Jerusalem tomorrow, always bittersweet. The view from our apartment at dawn with the Dome of the Rock and the Mount of Olives cemetery behind it. The Muslim quarter to the left and the Jewish quarter to the right. Wouldn’t it be nice if this part of the world could look so peaceful all the time?
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