Suleiman's Damascus Gate in Jerusalem's Old City

Northern Entrance in Emperor Hadrian's Aelia Capitolina

Jun 21, 2009

The 16th century Damascus Gate, one of a number of entry points allowing passageway through Jerusalem's ancient walls, is the largest and most ornate of the Old City gate

Built in 1538, by Ottoman sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, the Damascus Gate and adjoining wall have been the subject of considerable historical probing and archaeological digging.

Crusader Gate

During the 1930’s and again three decades later, excavation of the foundations revealed the remnants of a fortified Crusader gate and underneath an almost intact Roman gate with three entrances.

Further archaeological investigation, carried out by M Magen on behalf of the East Jerusalem Development Corporation between 1979 and 1984, allowed a closer and more detailed examination of the gate.

Magen’s work revealed a number of exciting finds, it included a 12 metre high, almost intact and well preserved, eastern tower and a western tower only marginally lower at 11 metres, both part of the Roman gate.

Temple Mount

“The walls and towers were built of large well dressed stones with typically Herodian margins,” said the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs (July 1998), which speculated that the stone had been removed from public buildings and the retaining walls of the Temple Mount (Al-Haram al-Sharif).

Aelia Capitolina

The Roman gate was the northern Gate of Aelia Capitolina (Roman Jerusalem), also known as the Shechem or Nablus Gate and was almost certainly built during the time of Emperor Hadrian 117 – 138 CE.

Among the evidence available that linked the gate with Hadrian was part of a Latin inscription found above the gate’s eastern entrance. It read “…by the decree of the decurions (a council in the Roman Empire) of Aelia Capitolina

The word Aelia came from Hadrian’s ‘nomen gentile’ (Roman naming convention) and Capitolina, which meant that the city was dedicated to the god Jupiter, to whom a Pagan temple was constructed on the site of the Jewish temple.

Madaba Map

A further reference to the gate was found on the Madaba Map, which is actually a magnificent, partially restored mosaic floor (from an earlier structure) rediscovered in the Greek Orthodox Church of St George in the Jordanian City of Madaba.

The mosaic, which depicts Jerusalem and the Holy Land, is one of the Middle East’s most important historical treasures. It gives historians a tantalising glimpse of the city of Jerusalem and shows its northern gate with a Roman victory column standing sentinel like inside it.

Bar Kokhba Revolt

The Roman column clearly had more than just an aesthetic significance; it was probably erected to commemorate Hadrian’s hard fought victory over Jewish forces in the Bar Kokhba revolt (135 CE). It was also the spot from where the distance to Damascus, now part of Syria was measured, hence the gate’s Arabic name Bab el-Amud, the Gate of the Pillar.

Today a person entering Jerusalem from the north can cross the bridge and enter the Old City through Suleiman’s gate or take the stairs down under the bridge and follow in the footsteps of Hadrian and the citizens of Aelia Capitolina.

Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Archaeological Sites in Israel – Jerusalem – The Northern Gate of Aelia Capitolina, 29 July 1998

Aharon Yaffe, The Map of Madaba, Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 7 January 1999

The copyright of the article Suleiman's Damascus Gate in Jerusalem's Old City in Middle Eastern History is owned by Neil Gunn. Permission to republish Suleiman's Damascus Gate in Jerusalem's Old City in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.