Jerusalem Through The Ages

For followers of the three Abrahamic faiths, Jerusalem is the place where the presence of the God of Israel dwells -the meeting point of heaven and earth and the locus of divine and human interaction. 'Jerusalem through the Ages' explores how these beliefs came to be associated with the city by introducing readers to its complex and layered history, providing a broad yet detailed account, including the most recent archaeological discoveries. Each chapter focuses on a key moment of transition from Jerusalem's beginnings to the Crusades of the medieval period, enabling readers to experience the city's many transformations as it changed hands and populations-Jebusites, Israelites, Judahites, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Jews, Christians, and Muslims. The book also includes a walking guide for visitors who wish to experience the city's many archaeological sites firsthand.

What do the bursar of Eton College, a canon of Mainz Cathedral, a young knight from near Cologne, and a Kentish nobleman's chaplain have in common? Two Germans, residents of the Holy Roman Empire, and two Englishmen, just as the western horizons of the known world were beginning to expand. These four men - William Wey, Bernhard von Breydenbach, Arnold von Harff, and Thomas Larke - are amongst the thousands of western Christians who undertook the arduous journey to the Holy Land in the decades immediately before the Reformation. More importantly, they are members of a much more select group: those who left written accounts of their travels, for the journey to Jerusalem in the late Middle Ages took place not only in the physical world, but also in the mind and on the page. Pilgrim authors contended in different ways with the collision between fifteenth-century reality and the static textual Jerusalem, as they encountered the genuinely multi-religious Middle East. This book examines the international literary phenomenon of the Jerusalem pilgrimage through the prism of these four writers. It explores the process of collective and individual identity construction, as pilgrims came into contact with members of other religious traditions in the course of the expression of their own; engages with the uneasy relationship between curiosity and pilgrimage; and investigates both the relevance of genre and the advent of print to the development of pilgrimage writing. Ultimately pilgrimage is revealed as a conceptual space with a near-liturgical status, unrestricted by geographical boundaries and accessible both literally and virtually.

In 1859, the famous German scientist, author of the works “History of the City of Rome in the Middle Ages” and “History of the City of Athens in the Middle Ages” Ferdinand Gregorovius wrote: “Three cities shine in the history of mankind with a splendor of world significance; Jerusalem, Athens and Rome. All three cities in the process of world life are contributing and mutually influencing factors of human culture. Jerusalem, the main city of a small Jewish people, not at all powerful, was the center of that mysterious monotheistic state from which Christianity emerged, and thus it is the metropolis of world religion. Long after its fall, it again receives a world-historical significance, along with Rome and in connection with it. In ancient times, the Romans destroyed Jerusalem, the Jewish people were scattered across the face of the earth, the meaning of the holy city passed to Christian Rome; but in the eleventh century Jerusalem rises again, and in the period of the crusades is the goal of the aspirations of the Christian pilgrims and the subject of the great popular struggle between Europe and Asia. And only then the history of Jerusalem ends with the ideas of which it was a symbol. "

On a cold winter morning in January of 1851, a small group of people approached the monumental façade of an ancient rock-cut burial cave located north of the Old City of Jerusalem. The team, consisting of two Europeans and a number of local workers, was led by Louis-Félicien Caignart de Saulcy—descendant of a noble Flemish family who later was to become a distinguished member of the French parliament. As an amateur archaeologist and a devout Catholic, de Saulcy was attracted to the Holy Land and Jerusalem in particular and was obsessed by his desire to uncover some tangible evidence for the city’s glorious past. However, unlike numerous other European pilgrims, researchers and adventurers before him, de Saulcy was determined to expose the evidence by physically excavating ancient sites. His first object of investigation constitutes one of the most attractive and mysterious monumental burial caves within the vicinity of the Old City, from then onward to be referred to as the “Tomb of the Kings” (Kubur al-Muluk). By conducting an archaeological investigation, de Saulcy tried to prove that this complex represented no less than the monumental sepulcher of the biblical Davidic Dynasty. His brief exploration of the burial complex in 1851 led to the discovery of several ancient artifacts, including sizeable marble fragments of one or several sarcophagi. It would take him another 13 years to raise the funds for a more comprehensive investigation of the site. On November 17, 1863, de Saulcy returned to Jerusalem with a larger team to initiate what would later be referred to as the first archaeological excavation to be conducted in the city.—(from the “Preface”) In 2006, some two dozen contemporary archaeologists and historians met at Brown University, in Providence RI, to present papers and illustrations marking the 150th anniversary of modern archaeological exploration of the Holy City. The papers from that conference are published here, presented in 5 major sections: (1) The History of Research, (2) From Early Humans to the Iron Age, (3) The Roman Period, (4) The Byzantine Period, and (5) The Early Islamic and Medieval Periods. The volume is heavily illustrated with materials from historical archives as well as from contemporary excavations. It provides a helpful and informative introduction to the history of the various national and religious organizations that have sponsored excavations in the Holy Land and Jerusalem in particular, as well as a summary of the current status of excavations in Jerusalem.

"Every man who undertakes the journey to the Our Lord's Sepulcher needs three sacks: a sack of patience, a sack of silver, and a sack of faith."—Symon Semeonis, an Irish medieval pilgrim As medieval pilgrims made their way to the places where Jesus Christ lived and suffered, they experienced, among other things: holy sites, the majesty of the Egyptian pyramids (often referred to as the "Pharaoh's granaries"), dips in the Dead Sea, unfamiliar desert landscapes, the perils of traveling along the Nile, the customs of their Muslim hosts, Barbary pirates, lice, inconsiderate traveling companions, and a variety of difficulties, both great and small. In this richly detailed study, Nicole Chareyron draws on more than one hundred firsthand accounts to consider the journeys and worldviews of medieval pilgrims. Her work brings the reader into vivid, intimate contact with the pilgrims' thoughts and emotions as they made the frequently difficult pilgrimage to the Holy Land and back home again. Unlike the knights, princes, and soldiers of the Crusades, who traveled to the Holy Land for the purpose of reclaiming it for Christendom, these subsequent pilgrims of various nationalities, professions, and social classes were motivated by both religious piety and personal curiosity. The travelers not only wrote journals and memoirs for themselves but also to convey to others the majesty and strangeness of distant lands. In their accounts, the pilgrims relate their sense of astonishment, pity, admiration, and disappointment with humor and a touching sincerity and honesty. These writings also reveal the complex interactions between Christians, Jews, and Muslims in the Holy Land. Throughout their journey, pilgrims confronted occasionally hostile Muslim administrators (who controlled access to many holy sites), Bedouin tribes, Jews, and Turks. Chareyron considers the pilgrims' conflicted, frequently simplistic, views of their Muslim hosts and their social and religious practices.

Elected Council Members: Citizens, City Dwellers, and Property Owners -- Yussuf Ziya al-Khalidi, the Founding Mayor -- At the Heart of Municipal Action: The Defense of Public Space -- Urbanites All? Public Health, Leisure, and Municipal Finances -- 6. The Wild Revolutionary Days of 1908 -- What Time Was It in Jerusalem? -- The Wild Days of August 1908: Jerusalem's Forgotten Revolution -- Unexpected Fracture Lines -- New Vectors of Lively Public Opinion -- Underneath Communities, Classes? -- 7. Intersecting Identities -- Albert Antébi, Levantine Urbanite -- An "Arab Awakening" in the Chaos of Battle -- Jerusalem and the Parochialism of the "People of the Holy Land"--Jerusalem, the Thrice-Holy City, and the Municipium -- Conclusion: The Bifurcation of Time -- The Bird People -- Ben-Yehuda, the Outsider -- Toward a Shared History -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index

Charts the development of Jerusalem and the archaeological discoveries made in and about the city, one of the oldest inhabited in the world. The book relates the major discoveries to our interpretation of the Bible, and looks at the city as a centre for many cultures and religions.