Gallery
Description
Property Name: Damascus Gate, Bāb al-ʿĀmūd
Inventory No: 972-2-18
Date of infill of the inventory form: 2020-07-23
Country (State party): Palestine
Province: Al Quds/Jerusalem
Town: Old town
Geographic coordinates: 31°46’53.83″N
35°13’49.47″E
Historic Period: Ottoman
Year of Construction: 1537-39 AC
Style:
Original Use: Gate
Current Use: Gate
Architect: Unknown
Significance
As in all cities of the East, the gates of Jerusalem were named either according to their direction or by the city they faced. The Damascus Gate is as multi-named as the city of Jerusalem. Another name is Nablus Gate. The Arabic name of the gate has an interesting historical depth. Roman Emperor Hadrian had the city rebuilt in the second century C.E. and erected a column inside this gate. All the roads and buildings of the city were constructed using this column as a reference point and later a statue of Hadrian was also erected on the column. In time both the statue and the column were lost, but stayed alive in the gate’s name: Today Arabs call the Damascus Gate Bab al-‘Amud (The Gate of the Column).
The Damascus Gate was Jerusalem’s main portal until the 19th century, when it lost this position to al-Khalil Gate. Markets were installed around it, caravans would unload their pack animals there and main custom formalities were carried out outside the gate. Nobody knew at the time, but archaeological excavation in the 20th century revealed that the Ottomans had built this gate on the site of a Roman portal. The Damascus Gate, built in the Valley that defined the topography of Jerusalem, stands well above the base of the valley, which was filled in with earth and aggregate. The level of the earth collected around the gate was probably not at its 19th-century level when the gate was first built, together with the city walls, in 1537-38. The removal of the accumulated earth and uncovering of the gate in all its majesty was possible only in the last quarter of the 19th century.
Selection Criteria
ii. to exhibit an important interchange of human values, over a span of time or within a cultural area of the world, on developments in architecture or technology, monumental arts, town-planning or landscape design
iii. to bear a unique or at least exceptional testimony to a cultural tradition or to a civilization which is living or which has disappeared
vi. to be directly or tangibly associated with events or living traditions, with ideas, or with beliefs, with artistic and literary works of outstanding universal significance
State of Preservation
The gate was restored in August 2011.
References
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