Wharton...
its Muslim buildings for the rebuilding of the Temple.
Other sites of contention are less familiar. The occasional eruptions of
violence between the traditional Christian sects (Greek Orthodox, Cop-
tic, Roman Catholic, Armenian, etc.) in possession of various parts of the
Holy Sepulchre are symptomatic of the continued rivalry of their spatial
claims (Fig.^ 4). The hostilities at the Holy Sepulchre always elicited dis-
dainful comments from Protestant Christian travelers, who in the 19th
century sought and found their own, alternate tomb of Jesus — Gordon’s
Garden Tomb. King David’s Tomb stages another example of spatial jeal-
ousy. “Zion” (probably the Jebusite term for fortress) or the City of David was the locus of the king’s burial (I Kings 2:10);
it is authoritatively located by archaeologists on the southeast hill of Jerusalem. But in late antiquity, the southwest hill
of the city was misidentified as “Zion.” On it, in the later fourth cen-
tury, a large five-aisled, two level basilica, known as the “Mother of All
Churches” was constructed. The church was rebuilt in much the same
form first by the Crusaders and then, in the 14th century, by the Fran-
ciscans. This last, Gothic structure incorporated many of the religious
narratives of its predecessor as well as its surviving foundations. It was
identified by pilgrims as the site of Jesus’ flagellation, the washing of
the Apostles’ feet, the Last Supper, Pentecost (when the Apostles re-
ceived the Holy Spirit 50 days after Jesus’ resurrection), and the death
of Mary. In the 16th century, the Franciscans were expelled from the
site after the Jews identified it to the Ottoman rulers as David’s Tomb.
At present, the surviving fragment of the great Gothic complex is a
two-storied room, with the Cenacle — the place of the Last Supper — above, and the Tomb of David below (Fig. 5). The
former is thoroughly secularized and the latter thoroughly sacralized. Men and women have separate entrances to the
Tomb; men who wish to visit it must wear yarmulkes. The Roman Catholics contest Israeli
control of the site, just as they did its Ottoman possession.
NEW ARCHITECTUREThe old buildings of Jerusalem may be violent, but they are solemn and handsome. Their
ancient walls and vaults were solidly constructed by local masons from the pink-gold
local limestone. The structures were built with traditional methods and in time-tested
forms. They age well. Even the buildings of the 19th and early 20th century — like the old
Jewish, Muslim, and Protestant neighborhoods founded outside the walls of the Old City,
the commercial structures built by the Armenian Patriarchate on Jaffa Road, or the Rock-Figure 3: Dome of the Rock
Figure 5: Cenacle and Tomb of
David, exterior
Figure 4: Holy Sepulchre, plan of the church showing
its sectarian divisions. From C.R. Ashbee, ed., Jerusa-
lem, 1920-1922 (1924).