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

598 EXPLORATIONS IN BIBLE LANDS
tect Dr. Schick, like a faithful watchman, kept an eye on
all such opportunities and improved them to the utmost.
He has now resided in Jerusalem for over fifty years, and is
still with youthful ardor observing everything that is likely
to throw light on ancient Jerusalem. He has neglected
nothing worth seeing, and has carefully surveyed, sketched,
and recorded everything that came under his notice. Thus
in the course of vears an abundance of material has been
gathered. During the last decades the work has also been
facilitated by the willingness of the government to permit
excavations, a privilege of which the English and the German
Palestine societies availed themselves, so far as their
means allowed.
It is due to all these circumstances that in the last few
vears our knowledge of ancient Jerusalem has made sufficient
progress to enable us to come to a substantial agreement
regarding a number of points of fundamental importance.
It is now no longer disputed that the Temple of
Solomon stood on the east hill, about where the present
" Dome of the Rock " Qubbat es-Sak/ira), also called the
(
Mosque of 'Omar, stands, or that the site of the Church of
the Holy Sepulchre corresponds with that of the old Basilica
of the Resurrection. Only twenty years ago Fergusson
still maintained that the Sepulchre of Christ was under
the Mosque of 'Omar, and that the Temple stood on the
southwest corner of the present Haram.
In order to come to a clear understanding of the chief
points in dispute, let us picture to ourselves the city's site.
Jerusalem is situated on a calcareous plateau, waterless and
unfertile, a tongue of land, as it were, nearly 900 acres in
size. It is surrounded on three sides by deep-cut ravines.
The valley of the Kidron runs on the east and northeast
sides, separating the plateau of Jerusalem, first from the
so-called Scopus, and secondlv from
the Mount of Olives.
In its upper course, to the north of the city, it is broad and