Dung gate

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Dung Gate 2008

The Dung Gate (also dung gate , Hebrew שער האשפות Shaʿar haʾAschpot , "waste gate"; Arabic باب المغاربة, DMG Bāb al-Maġāriba  'Gate of the Maghrebians') is one of the eight gates that lead into the old city of Jerusalem ; it is located immediately southwest of the Temple Mount and is now a main entrance to the Western Wall.

In the Bible ( Neh 2,13  EU and more often) a gate of the Persian Jerusalem becomes Hebrew שער האשפות Shaar haʾAschpot called "ash / garbage gate"; In the ancient Greek translation of the Bible it says “dung gate” ( ancient Greek πύλη τῆς κοπρίας pýlē tẽs koprías ): “And I rode out through the Golela gate, to the mouth of the spring of the fig trees and the dung gate, and I stood shaken on the wall of Jerusalem, which had been destroyed and its gates had been consumed by fire. ”However, this gate was about 600 m further south than today's dung gate.

The city wall, which the Empress Eudokia had drawn around Byzantine Jerusalem, ran further south than today's old city wall, so that the area of ​​today's Dung Gate was within the city walls. In the 6th century AD, the pilgrim from Piacenza mentioned here an "arch where the old city gate was," through which one descended to the pond of Siloam. When the city wall was taken back to the line of today's old town wall in early Islamic times, the "arch" became a city gate, the forerunner of today's dung gate. Al-Muqaddasi is the first to mention the name of this gate: Bab al-Balat . That could be called “palace gate” because behind this gate were caliph's palaces. The later Arabic name "Maghrebian Gate" refers to the Maghrebian quarter, which was in front of the Western Wall until 1967 (today Western Wall Plaza).

Gerbertor between 1940 and 1946

A weathered donor inscription testifies that Süleyman had the Dung Gate built in 1540/41. However, it was expanded under Jordanian administration in 1948 when the Jaffa Gate was closed to traffic. It was given its current form in 1985 under Mayor Teddy Kollek . Since then, due to the enlargement, motor vehicles (even buses ) have been able to pass through the dung gate to the Western Wall Plaza in front of the Western Wall. From the gate of Süleymans, above the lintel from 1985, the broken arch with cushions and a rose window can still be seen. In the gable was a six-pointed star that was removed under Jordanian administration.

There is a crusader-era gatehouse just 20 meters from the Dung Gate. The unadorned passage (the Gerber Gate ) was walled up in Ottoman times, but was reopened.

literature

  • Max Küchler : Jerusalem. A handbook and study travel guide to the Holy City (= Places and Landscapes of the Bible . Volume IV / 2), Göttingen 2007, pp. 121–123.

Web links

Commons : Dungtor  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. 2. Esdras 12,13 = Neh 2,13, Septuaginta Deutsch, Stuttgart 2009, p. 578.
  2. Max Küchler: Jerusalem. A handbook and study travel guide to the Holy City (= Places and Landscapes of the Bible . Volume IV / 2), Göttingen 2007, p. 122.
  3. Max Küchler: Jerusalem. A handbook and study guide to the Holy City (= places and landscapes of the Bible . Volume IV / 2), Göttingen 2007, p. 122 f.
  4. Max Küchler: Jerusalem. A handbook and study guide to the Holy City (= places and landscapes of the Bible . Volume IV / 2), Göttingen 2007, p. 123.
  5. Max Küchler: Jerusalem. A handbook and study travel guide to the Holy City (= Places and Landscapes of the Bible . Volume IV / 2), Göttingen 2007, p. 121.

Coordinates: 31 ° 46 ′ 29.3 "  N , 35 ° 14 ′ 2.5"  E