Obviously John A. Beck, author of The Holy Land for Christian Travelers, agrees -- he begins his chapter on Jerusalem with a suggestion, "It can ... be helpful to draw your own simple map ..., using the [a simple schematic map he provides] as a guide. Your assignment is to become familiar with the location of five hills, three valleys, and a sixteenth-century wall and its seven gates" (pp. 41-43). I did just that, and realized that the process of adding bit by bit in a logical fashion helped me retain the mental image. So I decided to share the process here. Nothing will substitute for doing the exercise for yourself, however.
Please note that this is just a rough schematic, for orientation purposes. It will not be in any way to scale and will be very grid-like, seeming perfectly oriented along a compass' axes. The Old City of Jerusalem -- that we're focusing on, of course -- is not.
Before we begin, let's just take a look at a sort-of historical overlay of the various stages in the growth (and recession) of Jerusalem through history.
Generally speaking, the "inner" red lines delineate the walls of Jerusalem as they stood about the time of Jesus. The darker black lines defining a "box" shifted northward from there represent the 16th Ottoman walls that still encompass the Old City. That's what we're looking at.
So, let's begin with a box representing the Old City walls:
Now, let's add the most significant feature, in the east but shifted a bit south within those old walls, the Temple Mount.
Simple enough, eh? That gives us a template with which to reference everything else. So let's throw in the physical topography. As Beck says, they are five hills and three valleys.
Let's build the picture....
First for the hills. The Temple Mount is one. South of it, outside the walls, is the long, skinny "City of David" -- the oldest part of Jerusalem, ironically enough outside the Old City! It's the old Jebusite city that David captured sometime shortly before 1000 BC. From there, in the reign of his son Solomon, the city expanded northward with the building of the First Temple -- but that history is not what we're interested in here, so stay on task, Kent! -- City of David -- that's two.
Next, to the east of the city is the Mount of Olives -- longer and skinnier, a ridge running north-south the length of the eastern wall and continuing down parallel to the City of David. That's three.
Then, to the west of the Temple Mount, within the city, is the Western Hill -- that's four.
Finally, south of the Western Hill, west of the City of David -- Mount Zion. That's five.
Before we go any further, make sure you have the hills clear in your mind:
East -- Mount of Olives
Middle, North then South -- Temple Mount then the City of David
West, North then South -- Western Hill then Mount Zion
Or:
Western Hill .....Temple Mount .... Mount
of
Mount Zion ...... City of David .... Olives
Got it?
Now for the valleys ... three? Well, yes, since the western and southern valleys are really one. But let's not start there. Let's start with the Kidron Valley. It runs north-south between the eastern wall of the city and the Mount of Olives, again, continuing southward along the eastern flank of the City of David.
Next, cutting right through the middle from the northern wall down between the Western Hill and the Temple Mounth, continuing between Mount Zion and the City of David -- the "Central Valley." Easy enough to remember? -- right down the middle.
Finally, the Hinnom Valley -- north-south outside the western wall, continuing down around Mount Zion, turning eastward to intersect the Central Valley and the Kidron Valley.
Or:
East: Kidron
North to South in the middle: Central
West and across the South: Hinnom
Now we have the major features -- the walls, hills, and valleys.
Now for the gates:
The walls have seven gates: three in the north, two in the south, one each west and east. They are indicated on the map with letters (and numbers since there are two D's):
In the north, going west to east: N = the New Gate; D1 = the Damascus Gate; and H = Herod's Gate.
In the south, also west to east: Z = the Zion Gate (opening toward Mount Zion); and D2 = the Dung Gate -- wait, what? Yep, that's what it's called!
Then to the west: J = the Jaffa Gate; and to the East: L = the Lion's Gate (also called St. Stephen's Gate).
Clockwise from northwest: N - D1 - H - L - D2 - Z - J. (Don't know if that helps or not....)
But wait, Dr. Hare? What's this about the four quarters of Jerusalem? I was just getting to that....
They are not really "quarters" at all, if by that you mean equally sized. But they are fairly easy to remember. First for the boundaries. One axis of a cross dividing the city in four runs straight down the Central Valley. The other runs straight across from the Jaffa Gate to the Temple Mount. The four very unequally sized quarters that result are, from northwest clockwise again -- and indicated by large grey letters: C = Christian; M = Muslim; J = Jewish; and A = Armenian.
Finally, just for kicks, let's very lightly indicate the walls as they stood in the time of Jesus, to emphasize that although the Holy Sepulchre is now right in the middle of the Christian Quarter, Calvary or Golgotha was then outside the northern wall.
The 1st-c. walls are light grey, two being indicated: the north wall from the northwest corner of the Temple Mount southwest to the Jaffa Gate, the south wall running southward from the southeastern corner around the Mount of Olives around the southern tip of the City of David, back up to the southeastern corner. And the Holy Sepulchre/Calvary is indicated by a Cross.
There you have it. Hopefully by following this, better yet, sketching it out for yourself, you now have a fairly good mental map of the major features of the Old City of Jerusalem, and some idea of how it relates to the city in the time of Jesus.
Just as a reminder, remember this is just a schematic. The reality was is more like this:
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