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Herod's Gate (, Bab az-Zahra, ) is one of the seven open
Gates of the Old City of Jerusalem This article lists the gates of the Old City (Jerusalem), Old City of Jerusalem. The gates are visible on most old maps of Jerusalem over the last 1,500 years. During different periods, the city walls followed different outlines and had a var ...
. It connects the Muslim Quarter inside of the old city to the eponymic
Palestinian Palestinians () are an Arab ethnonational group native to the Levantine region of Palestine. *: "Palestine was part of the first wave of conquest following Muhammad's death in 632 CE; Jerusalem fell to the Caliph Umar in 638. The indigenous p ...
neighbourhood of Bab az-Zahra, situated just outside. It is a short distance to the east of the
Damascus Gate The Damascus Gate is one of the main Gates of the Old City of Jerusalem. It is located in the wall on the city's northwest side and connects to a highway leading out to Nablus, which in the Hebrew Bible was called Shechem or Sichem, and from the ...
. Its elevation is 755 meters above sea level.


Names

''Herod's Gate'' is the Christian name of the gate from the 16th or 17th century. In
Luke 23 Luke 23 is the twenty-third chapter of the Gospel of Luke in the New Testament of the Christianity, Christian Bible. The book containing this chapter is Anonymity, anonymous, but early Christian tradition uniformly affirmed that Luke the Evangelis ...
(), Jesus is sent by
Pontius Pilate Pontius Pilate (; ) was the Roman administration of Judaea (AD 6–135), fifth governor of the Judaea (Roman province), Roman province of Judaea, serving under Emperor Tiberius from 26/27 to 36/37 AD. He is best known for being the official wh ...
to the tetrarch
Herod Antipas Herod Antipas (, ''Hērṓidēs Antípas''; ) was a 1st-century ruler of Galilee and Perea. He bore the title of tetrarch ("ruler of a quarter") and is referred to as both "Herod the Tetrarch" and "King Herod" in the New Testament. He was a s ...
, and a Christian tradition associated a somewhat-nearby house near the Church of the Flagellation with Herod Antipas's palace. Yet another tradition claimed that the nearby Church of St Nicodemus (Deir al-ʿAdas) was Herod Antipas's house. is the Arab Muslim name of the gate. In proximity to the gate is an Arab neighborhood called Bab az-Zahra. Az-Zahra is a corruption of the name , given to the hill and the cemetery across the road, where people are buried who have performed the
pilgrimage A pilgrimage is a travel, journey to a holy place, which can lead to a personal transformation, after which the pilgrim returns to their daily life. A pilgrim (from the Latin ''peregrinus'') is a traveler (literally one who has come from afar) w ...
to
Mecca Mecca, officially Makkah al-Mukarramah, is the capital of Mecca Province in the Hejaz region of western Saudi Arabia; it is the Holiest sites in Islam, holiest city in Islam. It is inland from Jeddah on the Red Sea, in a narrow valley above ...
.
Sura A ''surah'' (; ; ) is an Arabic word meaning 'chapter' in the Quran. There are 114 ''suwar'' in the Quran, each divided into verses (). The ''suwar'' are of unequal length; the shortest ''surah'' ( al-Kawthar) has only three verses, while the ...
79; 6-14 of the
Koran The Quran, also Romanization, romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a Waḥy, revelation directly from God in Islam, God (''Allah, Allāh''). It is organized in 114 chapters (, ) which ...
speaks of the Day of Resurrection using the phrase "they shall return to the earth's surface ()", and an old tradition interprets this term as the proper name of a concrete valley or plain, identified at least since the 11th century as the nearby Kidron Valley. The other meaning of ''sahira'', taken as a verb, is "to be watchful" and would indicate how the newly resurrected would look around waiting for the events to follow. The name ''Sahira'', once corrupted to "Zahra" – sometimes rendered as "Zahara" and on maps from the late 19th-early 20th century as "Zahira(h)" – became very similar to an Arabic word for 'flower' or 'blossom', ''zahra''. ('Flowers Gate') is the Hebrew name of the gate. Interpreted as a translation of the Arabic , explained above, it would seem to be a misnomer. However, the popular etymology of the Hebrew name connects it to the stone rosette which decorates the gate tower.


History

Formerly, the sprawling residential area within this gate was known as Bezetha (effectually translated as "New City"), settled during the late
Second Temple The Second Temple () was the Temple in Jerusalem that replaced Solomon's Temple, which was destroyed during the Siege of Jerusalem (587 BC), Babylonian siege of Jerusalem in 587 BCE. It was constructed around 516 BCE and later enhanced by Herod ...
period to accommodate Jerusalem's growing population.
Josephus Flavius Josephus (; , ; ), born Yosef ben Mattityahu (), was a Roman–Jewish historian and military leader. Best known for writing '' The Jewish War'', he was born in Jerusalem—then part of the Roman province of Judea—to a father of pr ...
, ''De Bello Judaico'' (''Wars of the Jews'') v.iv.§ 2
This modest gate, which opens from a wall tower, is one of the newest gates of Jerusalem. At the time when
Suleiman the Magnificent Suleiman I (; , ; 6 November 14946 September 1566), commonly known as Suleiman the Magnificent in the Western world and as Suleiman the Lawgiver () in his own realm, was the List of sultans of the Ottoman Empire, Ottoman sultan between 1520 a ...
built the city walls in the 1530s, a small wicket gate was situated in the eastern, lateral wall of the tower, which was rarely opened. By 1875, in order to provide a passageway to the new neighborhoods which were beginning to develop north of the Old City, the Ottomans opened a new gate in the northern, frontal wall of the tower, which faces the Sultan Suleiman Street and offers easier access, and closed the original lateral gate. In 1998 and during several subsequent excavation seasons (the latest in 2004), archaeologists of the
Israel Antiquities Authority The Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA, ; , before 1990, the Israel Department of Antiquities) is an independent Israeli governmental authority responsible for enforcing the 1978 Law of Antiquities. The IAA regulates excavation and conservatio ...
dug in the eastern area of Herod's Gate. The digging focused on three separate areas adjacent to the wall, in which nine archaeological layers were discovered – covering from the
Iron Age The Iron Age () is the final epoch of the three historical Metal Ages, after the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age. It has also been considered as the final age of the three-age division starting with prehistory (before recorded history) and progre ...
up through the Ottoman period. Among the most significant discoveries were structures from the period of the
Second Temple The Second Temple () was the Temple in Jerusalem that replaced Solomon's Temple, which was destroyed during the Siege of Jerusalem (587 BC), Babylonian siege of Jerusalem in 587 BCE. It was constructed around 516 BCE and later enhanced by Herod ...
, a complete segment of the Byzantine-Roman wall, and remnants of massive construction underneath the wall. These remnants were identified as portions of a
fortification A fortification (also called a fort, fortress, fastness, or stronghold) is a military construction designed for the defense of territories in warfare, and is used to establish rule in a region during peacetime. The term is derived from Lati ...
from the ancient Muslim period and from the Middle Ages. These discoveries point out the importance which the rulers of the city gave to the fortification of one of its most sensitive places—the northern wall of Jerusalem. Indeed, historical accounts indicate that in 1099 the Crusader army under
Godfrey of Bouillon Godfrey of Bouillon (; ; ; ; 1060 – 18 July 1100) was a preeminent leader of the First Crusade, and the first ruler of the Kingdom of Jerusalem from 1099 to 1100. Although initially reluctant to take the title of king, he agreed to rule as pri ...
entered the city through a breach located slightly east of the present Herod's Gate.


See also

*
Gates of the Old City of Jerusalem This article lists the gates of the Old City (Jerusalem), Old City of Jerusalem. The gates are visible on most old maps of Jerusalem over the last 1,500 years. During different periods, the city walls followed different outlines and had a var ...
* Bezetha * Zedekiah's Cave *
Walls of Jerusalem The Walls of Jerusalem (, ) surround the Old City of Jerusalem (approx. 1 km2). In 1535, when Jerusalem was part of the Ottoman Empire, Suleiman the Magnificent, Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent ordered the ruined city walls to be rebuilt. T ...


References

{{Old City (Jerusalem), state=collapsed Gates in Jerusalem's Old City Walls Historic sites in Jerusalem Muslim Quarter (Jerusalem) Herod Antipas