Palestine Exploration Quarterly

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The Results of the Excavations on the Hill of Ophel (Jerusalem Sous Terre), 1909–11

Charles Warren

To cite this article: Charles Warren (1912) The Results of the Excavations on the Hill of Ophel (Jerusalem Sous Terre), 1909–11, Palestine Exploration Quarterly, 44:2, 68-74, DOI: 10.1179/ peq.1912.44.2.68

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1179/peq.1912.44.2.68

Published online: 20 Nov 2013.

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Download by: [UNSW Library] Date: 24 April 2016, At: 19:29 68 RESULTS OF THE EXCAVATIONS ON THE HILL OF OPHEL.

possible to slip in again when I was dressed, nluch to the anlusement of the Arabs; anything like this slime-topped land I never walked on. The Bedouin, of which two :were accompanying us, washed when they came to water, but the fella~jn nwrely looked on. This is usual, as the Bedouin are in nlany respects the cleaner race. 'Ve reach~d N ekhl the next afternoon without .passing any features of interest. (To be continued.)

THE RESULTS OF THE EXCAVATIONS ON THE HILL OF OPHEL (JERUSALEM SODS TERRE), 1909-11.1

By GENERAL SIR CHARLES WARREN, G.C.JVLG., I{.C.B., F.R.S., R.E.

IN the Palestine Exploration Fund Quarterly Statement for January, 1912, there are two notices of the work of the Parker Expedition at Jerusalem, 1909-11, so that I need occupy no space ove-r prelimin- aries, and can proceed at once to my subject. For reasons denied to the public, the names of the members of the expedition and their objeets and aims have been withheld, and the nature of the work generally has been wrapped in mystery. In the translator's preface to Underground Jerusalem, 1911, we are promised that on the completion of the expedition's work the proceedings will be recorded in a final and complete volume, to be published by l\1essrs. Constable and Co. In the meantime, a tentative volun18 (Jerusale1n ~01lS terre), by the Rev. Father H. Vincent, has been published by J\1r. Horace Cox, Downloaded by [UNSW Library] at 19:29 24 April 2016 dealing with the portion of the work of the expedition which relates to clearing out the tunnels and aqueducts about the Virgin's Fount to Siloam, of whieh surveys and descriptions bad already been published by the P.E.F., 1867-1876 .. It is evident from Father Vincent's account that the expedition was very liberally supplied with money and material, but whether they were equally equipped for scientific research seems doubtful. We cannot, however, judge of the work of the expeditiQn until their volume is published, for Father Vincent expressly states that he

1 French Edition by H. Vincent, and English Translation. R~si:JtTs OF THE EXCA"\rATIONS ON THE HILL OF OPHEL. 69

accepts full responsibility for every error in plan and letterpress of Jerusalem sous terre, only he records that the proofs have been read by the leader of the expedition. I should not have considered it necessary, or even desirable, to make any renlarks on excavations which do not at present materially increase our knowledge of the Holy Land, had the accou~t been written in a fair and reasonable spirit, but it has been represented- to me that the statements of Father Vincent do a grievous injustice to the work of the Palestine Exploration Fund in former years, and that I am the only person sufficiently acquainted with the work to put matters straight. I respond with alacrity to this call to duty iIi connection with work I carried out in 1867. The matters I have to deal with are threefold. (1) Father Vincent, in speaking of my work at Jerusalem, in the English translation-states vaguely: "far too many points ,vere left uncertain to give a real value to his results. The structure and exact proportion of his galleries, the nature of his caverns, even the fact about one of his walls, which was supposed to be a natural cavity-all this remained uncertain. The few objects of archaeo- logical interest discovered, only complicated the problem, instead of throwing light upon it." (Underground Jerusalern, p. 11.) In the Revue Biblique (January, 1912, p. 86) these strictures are still more pointed and are untrue; the reason for these ungenerous remarks are to be found in the next paragraph. 2. Having thus cast on one side the work of the P.E.F., the author takes all our· plans and sections and uses them, giving no indication that the tunnels have already been examined, surveyed, and published in Plates 42 and 43 of the P.E.F. Plates. For example- the expedition's surveys of the plans of the tunnel, Virgin's Fount Downloaded by [UNSW Library] at 19:29 24 April 2016 to Siloam, and_ of the gallery, Virgin's Fount to Ophel, coincide almost exactly with the original surveys of the P.E.F.; the inference is either that one set of plans are copied from the other, or that they are both remarkably accurate. 3. On the other hand, there are discrepancies and errors in Father Vincent's sections which quite preclude their being of any use for scientific purposes, and the letterpress has a different lettering to the plans j but this latter- discrepancy has been recognized and removed by the publication of amended plans in the ReVIle Biblique, January, 1912. F 2 70 RESULTS OF THE EXCAVA.tloNS ON THE HtLL OF OPHEt.

Father Vincent gives an account of the work of ·the expedition as follows :- (a) Clearing out the mud and debris in the rock-cut aqueduct leading from the Virgin's Fount to Siloam, and making are-survey of the aqueduct. (Original Survey, Plate 42, P.E.F.) (b) Discovery of, and clearing out of some rock-cut channels (for about 50 feet). These are not of any importance at present and need not be referred to again. (c) Clearing silt and debris off the floor of rock-cut staircase leading from the shaft (Joab's Gutter) near the Virgin's Fount to the chasm. (These passages are all depicted on Plate 43, P.E.F.) In this work the expedition made one discovery, which, however, throws no light at present on any point: They found an exit in the rock to the open air from the top of the shaft. They also examined the chasm for about ten feet below the point where I was obliged to leave off in 1867. This yhasm is the one real point of interest ~n these subterranean passages, as it is supposed by sonle· to be the entrance to David's Tomb; yet, singularly enough, this chasm appears to have been left without a thorough examination, as there is no detailed account of it in the letterpress, and three sections of it (given in Underground Jel)"usalem, Plates III c, and V, and Revue Bibliqttte, January, 1912, Plate V) differ in the most unaccountable manner. In considering the results of these excavations, we must ,make a clear distinction between what the expedition may hereafter consider them to be, and what Father Vincent considers them to be now. Father Vincent, as a distinguished archaeologist, has been writing about these very tunnels for some years past. He states that the results of these excavations of the expedition, Downloaded by [UNSW Library] at 19:29 24 April 2016 1909-11, are twofold (p. 32, English translation) : (1) That the aqueduct from Virgin's Fount to Siloam is no,v determined to be the work of King Hezekiah. (2) That the rock-cut passage, shaft, and staircase, from the Virgin's Fount to Ophel is now proved to be the gutter (~inn6r) up which J oab ascended. Father Vincent, however, does not mention in. any way how these excavations prove this, and I may frankly state that his Chapter III, with all his deductions, might have been ,vritten just as appositely before the excavations of 1909-11 were made. RESULTS OF THE EXCAVATIONS ON THE HILL OF OPHEL. 71

I nlay say further, that these deductions were made by him before the Parker excavations commenced, and are published in the pages of the P.E.F. Q.S., 1908, p. 225. I quote his words :- "But everyone ,vin remember the system of -canals disco.vered and boldly explored by Lieut.-Gen. Warren, and a connexion between the subterranean communication from the city to the ,veIl, and the §inn6r of 2 Samuel v, 8, has long presented itself to acute minds." " . . . I did not hesitate in my recent work (Canaan d'apres l'Exploration Recente, p. 27, No.1) to attribute the §innor to the Jebusites of th~ 15th ,to the 11th century B.C., at Jerusalem." If we search back for the origin of the g'ut!er theory we must go back to a time, 1867-8, when the late Bishop of Jerusalem, then the Rev. Joseph Barclay, Dr. Chaplin, and I used to meet together in the evening to discuss the topography of Jerusalem, and argue the poirit as to whether J ebus could actually have been on Ophel. But the first time the theory of the gutter (§innor) of Joab actually canle before the public was when the Rev. W. F. Birch, in 1877-8, boldly championed it in the P.E.F. Q.S., 1878, stating at p. 179, that" the' gutter' was the secret passage above the Virgin's -]fount, discovered by Captain 'Varren, up which J oab climbed with the aid of Araunah." No new facts have since accumulated, but, as time has gone on, the position of Jebus or Zion on the slopes of Ophel has become more and more apparent. For some years the pages of the P.E.F. Q.S. were full of discussions for and against the site of Jebus on Ophel. The difficulty from the beginning to my mind was the site to be assigned to Akra, if it were in one place from early times; I therefore kept an open mind until it occurred to me that the Akra in Greek, like the citadel in English, would simply mean the inner fort of the day, so that the Akra might be in different

Downloaded by [UNSW Library] at 19:29 24 April 2016 places at different periods. As soon as this was clear to me, there could remain no shado,v of a doubt tbat J ebus was on the ridge south of the Temple, near to the Virgin's Fount, and so I have shown it in my article on Jerusalem in Sl1~ith's Dictionary of the Bible (1908). Nothing that the recent expedition of 1909-11 bas brought forward can possibly alter this view one way or another. Moreover, it is only so long as there is but one spring known in Jerusalenl, that J ebus must be on Ophel. With reference to the aqueduct cut in rock from the Virgin's Fount to Siloam, we are in the same position as we were forty-five years ago, except that we have the inscription describing th~ cutting. 72 RESULTS OF THE'"EXCAVATIONS ON THE HILL OF OPHEL.

It was then supposed to be the work of King Hezekiah; but which ,vork ~ There are three notices of King Hezekiah's cuttings in the rock, viz., at 2 I{ings xx, 20 j 2 Chronicles xxxii, 30; Ecclesiasticus xlviii, 17, these may all be one achievement, or they may be three. Father Vincent evidently does not know which to choose from, as he gives all three (p. 39, English translation). To my vie,v, one certainly, if not two, refer to the aqueduct in the northern part of the city, brought right down along the west side of the Temple wall to the west side of Zion. Whilst considering the aqueduct in question (Virgin's Fount to Siloam) to be probably th~_work of I{ing Hezekiah, I am not convinced that there is any mention of it in the Bible) excepting so far as it is mentioned that Hezekiah dug much in the rock. The fact is, there is no absolute certainty about sites except in a few cases, 'and we may yet find the springs without the city, which Hezekiah stopped up, and the brook that flowed through the midst of the land (see Je1'1lSalem: Waters, p. 4-03, in Smith's Dictionary of the Bible), and when we do so, ,ve may have to modify our conception of the position of J ebus. We can only conjecture from what we know. As Father Vincent considers the two points above-mentioned determined as the result of the recent expedition, 1909-11, I give some extracts from my remarks in the llecovery of Jenlsalem (1871), p. 303 : "The principal difficulty I find-but this is common to all theories- is, that in the book of Nehemiah, the City of David, the House of David, and the Sepulchre of David, all appear to be on the south- _eastern side of the Hill of Ophel, near the Virgin's Fount, or En Rogel, yet such a position for Zion appears at first sight to be out of the question," the difficulty being that the Millo is called in the Septuagint "the Akra," and in Maccabees, the City of David

Downloaded by [UNSW Library] at 19:29 24 April 2016 is called the Akra, and yet the Akra of Josephus was evidently not south of the Temple. So long as the Akra ,vas one place, through all ages, Zion could not be on Ophel. - On p. 307 I identify the Virgin's Fount with En Rogel, and on p. 209 I point out that the rock-cut tunnel, from Virgin's Fount to Siloam, is the work of King Hezekiah, and that the rock-cut shaft and staircase was made to bring water within the walls of the city. This was, of course, all conjecture, just as it is at the present day, but conjecture which has secured the adherence of increasing numbers. RESULTS OF THE EXCAVATIONS ON THE HILL OF OJ.>HEL. 73

As to the results of the work of the expedition, 1909-11, there is very little to be said, as they did not fully examine the one spot where exanlination was required, judging from the report given- the chasm. But the same is to be said of this expedition as of any other~any record~. about Jerusalem, if carefully recorded, add to our knowledge of the Holy City, and may turn out most useful and important some day. But we must retain our sense of proportion in these matters, and we cannot allow the discoveries made in 1867 to be belittled and obliterated by Father Vincent, and then brought up again by him as though they were only made in 1909-11. If the expedition of 1909-c"11have made any new discoveries, let them declare them, and we shall all rejoice; or let them point out in what particulars they can confirnl discoveries made before; or, again, if they find errors or mistakes in former work, let them point them out. But do not let them make such objections as the following, page 11 (English translation): "The few objects of archaeological interest discovered only complicated the problem instead of throwing light upon it, for they consisted of vases in glass or terracotta." This reminds me of the manner in ·which Canon Williams once summed up a similar argument-" Why, at this rate, any passage in any book will be sufficient in itself to settle the whole con- troversy." - In conclusion, let me call attention to a deduction of Father Vincent as to the time it would have taken the Hebrews or Jebusites to make the tunnel from the Virgin's Fount to Siloam. Ecclesiasticus says that Hezekiah dug the rock with iron, but Father Vincent states that the tunnel and the §innor were cut with chisels of irOll or brass, wedges of the same metal, hammers and clubs of metal or of stone. Downloaded by [UNSW Library] at 19:29 24 April 2016 The effect of iron in comparison with brass (or even copper and bronze) must differ enormously in cutting through hard rock, and yet Father Vineent at p. ·39 (English translation), without any data ,vhatever, proceeds "to fix the exact time the workmen must have taken to excavate the tunnel: I am sure it could not have been less than six months. The extreme limit would be about eleven." Finally, let me observe that there was no secrecy or mystery about the excavations of the P.E.F. in Jerusalem in 1867-70. The shafts and galleries were open to tbe inspection of all, &nd were 74 THE TOPOGRAPHY OF RACHEL'S TOMB.

examined and reported on by experts of all nationalities, and the fullest publicity permitted. The pottery found was photographed periodically by l\ir. P. Bergheim, and selections ,vere sent to London and . reported on by l\lr. Greville Chester in the Recov.ery of Jerusalern. No doubt, during the last forty-five years, much has been added to our knowledge of ceramic ware from discoveries in the East; and if the P.E.F. pottery is again examined we may learn if any mistakes have been made in former days. Let me suggest that the ,york of the expedition of 1909-11 he examined in the same searching' manner, by independent experts, as was the 'work of the P.E.F., 1867-70, and we may then learn to what extent the recent excavations have added to our knowledge.

THE TOPOGRAPHY OF RACHEL'S TOMB.

By PROF. R. A. S. MACALISTER, M.A., F.S.A.

I. THE following article was written by me some years ago, and has lain in my portfolio ever since. I had decided not to publish it, for I discovered, after the paper was written, that the main thesis had 'already been anticipated in Prof. Clermont-Ganneau's Archaeological Researches in Palestine. A paper published in last year's Q1larterly Statement, bearing indirectly on the subject, has however induced me to bring it forward. It can at least claim to be the result of an independent study of ,the subject, but I freely concede to Prof. Clermont-Ganneau the rights of priority due to him.

Downloaded by [UNSW Library] at 19:29 24 April 2016 The reader, unacquainted with the country north of J erusalenl, is recomnlended to follow this paper with a good modern map, such as Principal G. A. Smith's, or Sheet XVII of the inch Ordnance Survey. II. The ancient highways from Jerusalem to the north and the east did not follow the courses of the present roads. The northern route passed through Bethel, which is east of the modern'road-if Beitin',l where no one has ever found any relics of great antiquity,

1 Modern names 'are given in italics ill this paper.