Singer | 129in Jerusalem. This peacetime urban conquest was achieved with new construc-
tion as well as the appropriation of existing sites. Yet it was not simply a matter
of evictions or building new structures. Ottoman constructions were designed to
make emphatic statements, either through their appearance or location. And the
same was true of the sites they appropriated.
Among the Ottoman monuments, the most visible were the city walls and
gates, previously left to deteriorate by the Ayyubids and Mamluks after the evic-
tion of the crusaders. These are the walls familiar today to anyone who has visited
Jerusalem or even seen a picture of the so-called Old City. For over 450 years these
walls have fixed the boundaries of the city, first the whole of it, and, since the nine-
teenth century, as the demarcation between the “old” and the “new” cities.
When newly built in the late 1530s, the walls conveyed several messages.
Most immediately, they declared the Ottoman presence in the region, marking
the change from the defeated Mamluk rulers. The mass of the walls clearly com-
municated Ottoman military power, a message aimed at locals and foreigners
alike. The walls afforded security to the townspeople, protecting them from raid-
ing and attacks of local Bedouins. At the same time, the city had gates facing all
directions, to afford direct access for local villagers as well as for travelers of all
types.
The inscriptions over the gates mark their completion over a period of three
to four years, although construction work on the entire perimeter of the walls
may have taken longer than this. The size and shape of the project testified to the
abilities and tastes of Ottoman and local architects and builders. The walls were
rebuilt on their former course, using the enormous existing Herodian stones at
the base and reusing blocks from local ruins, along with newly cut stone in the
upper courses. An investment of this magnitude signaled that the Ottomans in-
tended to stay in Jerusalem. Moreover, it indicated that the Ottomans recognized
the special status of Jerusalem, despite its small size and peripheral location. Fol-
lowing the precedent established by the Umayyad caliph Muɇawiya bin Abu Suf-
yan, they seem to have identified Jerusalem, in the words of the art historian Oleg
Grabar, “with the legitimization of authority, above and beyond whatever pious
meanings were involved in the city.” Having taken the city, they were anxious to
keep it and benefit from its sanctity.
Ultimately, the symbolic importance of the walls was greater than their phys-
ical strength. Despite their impressive appearance, the walls were inadequate to
withstand a concentrated artillery barrage from an attacking army. The towers
were even unfinished in places. Thus, they served largely to keep out local trou-
blemakers or to frustrate Ottoman forces who had to deal with revolts in later
years. The sight of the walls, however, recalled those of other towns: the massive
Byzantine fortifications of Constantinople, which the Ottomans had breached
and now held as their own, or the forty-foot-high wall that Sultan Süleyman built