Wyandot County Republican. [volume] (Upper Sandusky, Ohio) 1869-1903, 1871-06-15
Discoveries In Jerusalem.

religious might seem certainly unusual,
probably out of place. But these re-
searches have in them SO broad snd Cath
olic an interest; have been undertaken,
not to serve any party or sect, but are, so
to speak, for all mankind; and bear, be-
sides, on archaeological points SO curious
and so little understood, that we may be
pardoned if we devote page to the gath
ering up of few of the pearls which lie
about Captain Warren's account of his
work, recently published in the "Recov-
cry of Jerusalem.
The problems which he was asked to
solve were chiefly three-the former po
sition of the Temple, that of the Church
of the Sepulchre, and that of the Toombs
of the Kings; and the data are such that,
if we knew the position of any one. those
of the other two would not be difficult to
find There are traditional sites, of course,
and that assigned to the Church OF the
Holy Sepulchre has been regarded as gen
uine by every pilgrim who has gone there
for the last 800 years; nor was it till Mr.
James Furgusson, in his startling and able
book on the Topography of Jerusalem"
attacked the traditional sites, that the
world ever regarded these as other than
genuine and historically authentic.
The controversies which have arisen
since the publication of Mr.. Furgusson's
book have been many and bitter. We are
not prepared here even to give the lead
points of the dispute, or any of the rea-
sons brought forward. Suffice it to say,
that all parties claim in their favor the
testimony of early trayelers-this consist.
ing of vague and inaccurate accounts
wholly untrustworthy, of the buildings;
that all rely on Josephus and the Bible;
and that, from nearly the same premises,
conclusions so different are arrived at as
to give an entirely different character, ac
cording to the view we take, to the ancient
topography of the Holy City. 1t is almost
as if, in future times, one set of archRolo-
gists were to accept the traditional sites
of st. Paul's, Westminster, and the Guild
hall and another to put st. Pauls at
London Bridge, Westminster at Islington,
and Guildhall at Poplar.
The problem could have been solved,
in all probability, with very great ease,
provided Captain Warren had been per-
mitted to dig in the sacred area called the
Haram, in some part of which stood, most
undoubtedly, the temple. But this could
not be allowed, in consequence of the pref
udices of the people; and he had to con-
tent himself with burrOwing outside the
wall which surrounds the Haram, and
sinking long shafts down to reach the
foundations, and read whatever might be
esONS@'
The whole of the city stands upon some
twenty feet of rubbish as had been ascer
tained some years SINCE when the Protes-
tant church was built. This rubbish is
not altogether the result of the many
seiges which have desolated the city; it
has arisen also from the fact that, In the
falling or destruction of house, the peo-
pie have found it easier to build over the
old ruins than to remove them. Of course
it must be remembered that the roofs were
of stone, and not of lath and plaster. But,
prepared as we were to hear of the usual
difficulties caused by this twenty feet or
SO of debris, no one at all expected to hear
what turned out to be the case, that the
Haram wall stands covered up8O and even
120 feet deep, in debris consisting of stone
disintegrated and cut up by weather and
destruction, formed wholly of the ruins
hurled down from the square area which
the walls enclosed. The south wall, for
instance, looking straight over the juno
ton of the valleys of Jehosophat and Hin
rom, must have been, in the time of Herod,
the most stupendous and splendid pile of
masonry ever built. 1t extended in a line
of $50 feet, east to west, from valley to
valley, the rock cropping up in the center,
and the hight of the wall growing greater
at the two extremities, till it reaches that
of 200 feet. Above this, again, stood the
Royal Cloister, with its pillars and capi-
tails and behind all lowered the great
Temple itself. Built, too, of that bright
white stone, which is almost like marble,
it must have been, indeed, as it lowered
aloft, and glittered in the sunshine, worthy
of a nations pride and a conqueror's ad-
miratiOn.
The shafts by which this wall were ex-
amined were slender pipes, about four feet
square, kept from falling in by timber
beams. Up and down them the workmen
-.tellatin, from the village of Sloan
were raised and lowered by ropes. Visitors,
too, not a few, descended the shafts, and
crawled about the galleries and passages
underground. Passages, indeed there were
plenty, for Jerusalem is a city which, for
its system of water-supply and drainage,
formerly stood alone. QUGntuna naut0t0!
And, wherever the rock was reached, there
was almost sure to be some passage, gale
ry or aqueduct-buried thus and forgotten
for nearly two thousand years-along
which Captain Warren would crawl, lamp
and sketch book in hand, to explore and
examine. Now it would be an old aque-
duct, rooted with stone, the holes still re-
naming where the buckets were lowered
on its floor little jars and pieces of
broken pottery; now it would be net
work of chambers, cut in the rock or built
In the rubbish; now, modern cistern,
stopping the way to explore an old cham
ber; now, secret passage for soldiery,
along which regiment might walk in
fOurs now a hole in the wall, leading to a
chamber constructed in the masonry itself;
and now, an old wall, too thick to be cut
through, too high to be got over, which
baff1ed their further research 1t is a
record of peril and adventure, as well as
dIconUnTu ayad \, = flo,-o
no small risks to be run by those who es-
sayed to follow El Captain in his devious
subterranean Wanderings. There have al
ways been legends pointing to the existence
OF vaults In the sacred area; in them, as
we learn from the Book of Maccabees,
Jeremy, the Prophet, hid away the Book
of the Law. Here, as the Talmud relates.
Solomon-anxious not to allow the Sacred
Name by whose virtue he effected such
wonders to be forgotten-placed two fig
ures, one of which a brazen man, was
made to utter the word once a year while
the other, braZen lion, was to roar imme-
diately afterward The Jewish youth were
admitted on the day, and duly heard the
Name pronounced; but, on the roaring of
the lion, were incontinently seized with
fear SO deadly, that they invariably forgot
1t. The Talmud goes on to relate how
our Lord became possessed of the Name
by which He wrought his miracles. At
the siege of the Titus. brazen man and
brazen lion were destroyed together, and
no one will ever again know the Sacred
Name. There is every probability that
the legends have basis of fact in the ex-
istence of vaults. So long ago as the year
1888, there were discovered range of
subterranean arches and vaults, now
known as Solomon's stables, in the south
east corner of the Harem Captain War
ren ascertained that there is lower series
OF chambers, which he was, unfortunately,
unable to explore, in consequence of the
ruinous condition in which he found them
any attempt to investigate them appear
ing likely to bring the whole structure
about his ears. Now, as the rock on which
the Harem area stands may be compared
to square saucer, round the sides of
which the walls are built-the corners
being, of course, the deepest-it is ex-
frnY ,al.fx 10 bot Ill