High above sea level and supplied with fresh water from a perennial spring, the area of what became Jerusalem shows signs of human habitation reaching back to the Stone Age. Bronze
Age execration texts list rushalimum among the enemies of Pharaoh
in retenu (Canaan). Excavations show evidence of a fortified city
dating to the same time (19th century B.C.E.), and 14th century letters from urusalim,
or "Founded
by Shalem" (the evening star) name the hapiru as a threat that unsettled
this late Bronze Age Canaanite city.
In
Jewish cultural memory, Jerusalem is the City of David, King of Israel, and the site of the only legitimate temple of YHWH, Creator of Heaven and Earth.
When temple and kingdom were destroyed and the Judahites exiled, prophets envisioned a new, better Jerusalem.
Under Persian tutelage and Hellenistic rule, Jerusalem is rebuilt and transformed into a unique prism of the cultural and political forces that heralded the end of the ancient world.
Having quelled the last great Jewish rebellion against Rome, Emperor Hadrian builds an entirely new city, erasing the old.
Redesigned and renamed, Aelia Capitolina serves as the home of the Xth Roman Legion "Fretensis." Its insignium is a pig. Jews are banned from residing in the city.
After
324, Constantine the Great and his mother, Helena,
excavate and resurrect Jerusalem as a symbol of a Christian faith that was to become the official religion of the Empire.
Renewing the religion of Abraham, the Arab followers of prophet Muhammad displace the Byzantine Empire in bilad al sham (Syro-Palestine) and beyond. The Bishop of Jerusalem surrenders, securing the holdings of the church under the new regime. In contrast to the Byzantines, Caliph Umar and his successors show tolerance toward all "people of the book."
Under the Umayyad dynasty (661-750), Ilya is transformed into the "City of the Holy House" (madinat bayt al-maqdis), its new shrine, the Dome of the Rock, signalling the consolidation of Muslim rule in a language the Byzantines can understand: monumental architecture.
Hierosolyma, as the Latins call it, is at the heart of pope Urban II's call to liberate the holy places from the "infidels." French nobles, or the franj, as the Arabs will call European Catholics for centuries, take up the cross in form of the sword. When they arrive at the Holy City after many hardships, the Crusaders slaughter the remaining population. The Dome of the Rock is now the templum salomonis, its subterranean colonades the "stables of Solomon," and the newly restored Holy Sepulchre resembles a Romanesque castle, adding Crusader architecture to the vernacular of the medieval Holy City.
After
driving out the franj, Ayyubids and Mamluks pursue a
program of Islamicization in a city that is henceforth a center
of piety, not politics.
Under the Ottomans, the walls are rebuilt and Jewish refugees from Spain
settle alongside teachers of Sharia law, Franciscan monks, Sufi mystics and dervishes, Armenian traders, and the many others who call the city home. Suleiman the Magnificent lays the foundations for the longest reign of peace in the Holy City.
In 1917, Sir Edward Allenby enters Jerusalem,
ushering in an era of Anglo-Saxon Protestant colonial domination in the Middle East.
Jerusalem serves as capital of Mandatory Palestine. Jewish and Arab nationalism clash,
and Britain withdraws in ignominy. Jerusalem is divided between Israel and
the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.
Although united under the Israeli flag since 1967, Jerusalem continues to be internally divided, its
legal status unresolved, and its symbolic value as contentious as ever.
Sources for research and further study.
| Holy City: Jerusalem in time, space and imagination |
| Professor Michael Zank, Boston University Dept. of Religion |