 | This articleneeds additional citations forverification. Please helpimprove this article byadding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Herod's Gate" – news ·newspapers ·books ·scholar ·JSTOR(September 2014) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
| Herod's Gate | |
|---|---|
 Herod's Gate | |
  Location in Old Jerusalem | |
| General information | |
| Location | Jerusalem |
| Coordinates | 31°46′58.8″N35°14′1.5″E / 31.783000°N 35.233750°E /31.783000; 35.233750 |
Herod's Gate (Arabic:باب الزاهرة,Bab az-Zahra,Hebrew:שער הפרחים,romanized: Sha'ar HaPrakhim,lit. 'Flowers Gate') is one of the seven openGates of the Old City of Jerusalem. It connects theMuslim Quarter inside of the old city to the eponymicPalestinian neighbourhood ofBab az-Zahra, situated just outside. It is a short distance to the east of theDamascus Gate. Its elevation is 755 meters above sea level.
Herod's Gate is the Christian name of the gate from the 16th or 17th century.[1] InLuke 23 (Luke 23:7), Jesus is sent byPontius Pilate to the tetrarchHerod Antipas, and a Christian tradition associated a somewhat-nearby house near theChurch of the Flagellation with Herod Antipas's palace.[1] Yet another tradition claimed that the nearbyChurch of St Nicodemus (Deir al-ʿAdas) was Herod Antipas's house.[2]
Bāb az-Zāhra is the Arab Muslim name of the gate. In proximity to the gate is an Arab neighborhood calledBab az-Zahra. Az-Zahra is a corruption of the nameas-Sāhira, given to the hill andthe cemetery across the road, where people are buried who have performed thepilgrimage toMecca.[3]Sura 79; 6-14 of theKoran speaks of theDay of Resurrection using the phrase "they shall return to the earth's surface (as-sāhira)", and an old tradition interprets this term as the proper name of a concrete valley or plain, identified at least since the 11th century as the nearbyKidron Valley.[4] The other meaning ofsahira, taken as a verb, is "to be watchful" and would indicate how the newly resurrected would look around waiting for the events to follow.[5] The nameSahira, once corrupted to "Zahra" – sometimes rendered as "Zahara" and on maps from the late 19th-early 20th century as "Zahira(h)" – became very similar to an Arabic word for 'flower' or 'blossom',zahra.
Sha'ar HaPrakhim ('Flowers Gate') is the Hebrew name of the gate. Interpreted as a translation of the ArabicBāb az-Zāhra, explained above, it would seem to be a misnomer.[6] However, the popular etymology of the Hebrew name connects it to the stone rosette which decorates the gate tower.
Formerly, the sprawling residential area within this gate was known asBezetha (effectually translated as "New City"), settled during the lateSecond Temple period to accommodate Jerusalem's growing population.[7]
This modest gate, which opens from a wall tower, is one of the newest gates of Jerusalem. At the time whenSuleiman the Magnificent built the city walls in the 1530s, a smallwicket gate was situated in the eastern, lateral wall of the tower, which was rarely opened. By 1875, in order to provide a passageway to the new neighborhoods which were beginning to develop north of the Old City, the Ottomans opened a new gate in the northern, frontal wall of the tower, which faces the Sultan Suleiman Street and offers easier access, and closed the original lateral gate.
In 1998 and during several subsequent excavation seasons (the latest in 2004), archaeologists of theIsrael Antiquities Authority dug in the eastern area of Herod's Gate. The digging focused on three separate areas adjacent to the wall, in which nine archaeological layers were discovered – covering from theIron Age up through the Ottoman period. Among the most significant discoveries were structures from theperiod of the Second Temple, a complete segment of the Byzantine-Roman wall, and remnants of massive construction underneath the wall. These remnants were identified as portions of afortification from the ancient Muslim period and from the Middle Ages.[dubious –discuss] These discoveries point out the importance which the rulers of the city gave to the fortification of one of its most sensitive places—the northern wall of Jerusalem. Indeed, historical accounts indicate that in 1099 the Crusader army underGodfrey of Bouillon entered the city through a breach located slightly east of the present Herod's Gate.[citation needed]
[Herod's Gate] got its present name only in the C16 or C17 because pilgrims believed a Mamluk house inside near the Franciscan Monastery of the Flagellation to be the palace of Herod Antipas.
... Herod Antipas and that in the Middle Ages the building was identified as the house of Herod […] However, […] there is no certain evidence to suggest that it was ever associated with the Dair al-ʿAdas before the later nineteenth century. Around that time the Dair al-ʿAdas assumed that identity from another house standing some 90 m west of it
The verb 'sahira' means "to be watchful," and there are passages in the Koran which speak of the newly risen on the Day looking around watching expectantly for what will come next. The common opinion, however, is that 'as-Sahira' here is a proper noun, the name of that wide ope plain on which men will be assembled for Judgement, in which case one should translate;"there they are at as-Sahira."
{{cite book}}:ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)31°46′58.8″N35°14′1.5″E / 31.783000°N 35.233750°E /31.783000; 35.233750
