Explorations in Bible lands during the 19th century - H. V. Hilprecht

DURINU 19 CENTURY: PALESTINE 597
mous difficulties as are found nowhere else. These grow
out of the city's history. More frequently than any other
city has Jerusalem been conquered, and destroyed, and almost
levelled to the ground ;
and upon the ruins of the old
a new city always rose again. In many places the debris
that conceals the old city from our sight is over ioo feet
deep. Laborious and expensive excavations are therefore
everywhere necessary in order to arrive at any degree of
certitude regarding the form of the ancient city. In many
Herod's Temple, 30 b. c, according to the Model by Dr. Schick
places these are impossible, inasmuch as upon the debris
the new houses of the modern city have been built, underneath
which digging cannot be done.
Owing to the fanaticism of the populace which compelled
the government to withhold its permission, no excavations
could be made during the first half of the nineteenth century.
Good luck, however, led to many discoveries. The
building of a new house, the walling up of a cistern and
like operations afforded opportunities for seeing something
of the ground beneath Jerusalem, and thus many interesting
facts came to light. The indefatigable German archi-