Is today's Old City of Jerusalem the Jerusalem of the Crusades' period?

Upvote:5

An addition to other already excellent answers:

The Western "Wailing Wall" is constructed at the very top from smaller stones placed initially by the Roman X legion. However, the large stones below that - typically about 12 tons each - which make up most of "The Wailing Wall" are the remnants of the wall built by Herod the Great's engineers. Touch the wall and you touch true antiquity.

And that boundary of the old city is 'not going anywhere fast'. The wall we see now is about 40% of the original, with the other 60% below ground level, going all the way down to bedrock. Herod meant it to last. It has.

Upvote:28

Yes. Quite closely resembling:

See that structure in the South-East? The temple mount? That's were the Knights Templar took their name from. This is almost a fixed point in time.

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Plan of twelfth-century Jerusalem
Adrian J.Boas: "Crusader Archaeology. The Material Culture of the Latin East", Routledge: London, New York, 1999, p13. Although at the time, maps were painted with different emphasis (click to enlarge:

enter image description here enter image description here Madaba Map, 6th century The oldest map we seem to have, for comparison.

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A plan of Jerusalem, based on the Book of Ezekiel, prepared by Daniel Stoopendaal and published in the Dutch Statenbijbel (State Bible) in late-17th century, with a view and plan of the Temple of Solomon, Ezekiel’s Temple, and 10 more Biblical vignettes.

Ancient plan of Jerusalem featuring the Temple of Solomon and Bible Illustrations, D. Stoopendaal (Source Battlemaps.us)

As your special interest seems to indicate, this might be useful as well:

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David Nicolle & Christa Hook: "The First Crusade 1096–99. Conquest of the Holy Land", Campaign 132, Osprey, 2003, p 74–75.

A great overview of old maps for this city is of course: קרטוגרפיה של ירושלים

If this 'stability' in general outlines sounds much surprising, it is really not. The physical geography of the place sets certain limits on city building for a settlement that should have been defended in former times. Since the economic development of Jerusalem was very dependent on being a religious centre, but not much else, it didn't grow like other cities did.

The physical landscape and surroundings:

enter image description here (Political Geography of Jerusalem)

enter image description here enter image description here (Src: Alamy)

But if we go really far back, there might be another rather fixed point, apart from the temple mound, as part of the wall:

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Boundaries of Jerusalem in the First Temple period: maximalist school (A) and minimalist school (B)
Amnon Ben-Tor: Archaeology of Ancient Israel", Yale University Press: 1992, 365

Compared to another early maps and two models in 3D on Early Maps and Models of Jerusalem:

Sir Charles Wilson 1865: enter image description here S. IIIes 1873: http://templemount.org/map16-156.jpg
A three dimensional map of Jerusalem was made in the year 1873 by an Hungarian priest who lived in Jerusalem for twelve years. This three dimensional map was displayed in an exhibition in Vienna in the year 1873 and later in several countries in Europe. The size of this map is four by four and a half meters, and its scale is 1:500. It represents the Old City of Jerusalem and its surroundings.

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C. Schick, End Of Nineteenth Century –– Conard Schich, a famous Architect who lived in Jerusalem at the end of the nineteenth century, created a three dimensional model of Jerusalem as he envisaged it to be during the period of the Second Temple. The size of this model is 99 by 85 cm, and its scale 1:2500.

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