Israelite period , part of the wall surrounding the city's western hill, built by
Hezekiah, king of
Judah, during the late-8th century BCE According to the
Hebrew Bible, before
King David's
conquest of Jerusalem in the 11th century BCE the city was home to the
Jebusites. The
Bible describes the city as heavily fortified with a strong
city wall, a fact confirmed by archaeology. The Bible names the city ruled by King David as the
City of David, in
Hebrew Ir David, which was identified southeast of the Old City walls, outside the
Dung Gate. In the Bible, David's son,
King Solomon, extended the city walls to include the Temple and Temple Mount. After the partition of the
United Kingdom of Israel, the southern tribes remained in Jerusalem, with the city becoming the capital of the
Kingdom of Judah. Jerusalem was largely extended westwards after the
Neo-Assyrian destruction of the northern
Kingdom of Israel and the resulting influx of refugees. King
Hezekiah had been preparing for an Assyrian invasion by fortifying the walls of the capital, building towers, and constructing a tunnel to bring fresh water to the city from a spring outside its walls. He made at least two major preparations that would help Jerusalem to resist conquest: the construction of the
Siloam Tunnel, and construction of the
Broad Wall. The First Temple period ended around 586 BCE, as
Nebuchadnezzar's Neo-Babylonian Empire conquered Judah and Jerusalem, and laid waste to
Solomon's Temple and the city.
Second Temple period In 538 BCE, the
Persian King Cyrus the Great invited the
Jews of Babylon to
return to Judah to rebuild the Temple. Construction of the
Second Temple was completed in 516 BCE, during the reign of
Darius the Great, 70 years after the destruction of the First Temple. In about 440 BCE, the city was rebuilt on a smaller scale during the Persian period, when, according to the Bible,
Nehemiah led the Jews who returned from the Babylonian Exile. An additional, so-called Second Wall, was built by King
Herod the Great, who also
expanded the Temple Mount and rebuilt the Temple. In 41–44 CE,
Agrippa, king of
Judea, started building the so-called "Third Wall" around the northern suburbs. The entire city was totally
destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE. of the
Temple Mount thrown during the Roman
Siege of Jerusalem in 70 CE
Late Roman, Byzantine, and Early Muslim periods The northern part of the city was rebuilt by the Emperor
Hadrian around 130, under the name Aelia Capitolina. In the
Byzantine period Jerusalem was extended southwards and again enclosed by city walls.
Muslims occupied Byzantine Jerusalem in the 7th century (637 CE) under the second caliph, `
Umar Ibn al-Khattab who annexed it to the Islamic
Arab Empire. He granted its inhabitants an assurance treaty. After the siege of Jerusalem,
Sophronius welcomed `Umar, allegedly because, according to biblical prophecies known to the
Church in Jerusalem, "a poor, but just and powerful man" would rise to be a protector and ally to the
Christians of Jerusalem. Sophronius believed that `Umar, a great warrior who led an austere life, was a fulfillment of this prophecy. In the account by the
Patriarch of Alexandria,
Eutychius, it is said that `Umar paid a visit to the
Church of the Holy Sepulchre and sat in its courtyard. When the time for prayer arrived, however, he left the church and prayed outside the compound, in order to avoid having future generations of Muslims use his prayer there as a pretext for converting the church into a mosque. Eutychius adds that `Umar also wrote a decree which he handed to the Patriarch, in which he prohibited Muslims gathering in prayer at the site.
Crusader & Ayyubid periods In 1099, Jerusalem was captured by the
Western Christian army of the
First Crusade and it remained in their hands until recaptured by the
Arab Muslims, led by
Saladin, on October 2, 1187. He summoned the Jews and permitted them to resettle in the city. In 1219, the walls of the city were razed by
Sultan Al-Mu'azzam of
Damascus; in 1229, by treaty with
Egypt, Jerusalem came into the hands of
Frederick II of Germany. In 1239 he began to rebuild the walls, but they were demolished again by
Da'ud, the emir of
Kerak. In 1243, Jerusalem came again under the control of the Christians, and the walls were repaired. The
Khwarazmian Turks took the city in 1244 and Sultan Malik al-Muazzam razed the walls, rendering it again defenseless and dealing a heavy blow to the city's status.
Ottoman period The current walls of the Old City were built in 1535–42 by the Ottoman Turkish sultan Suleiman the Magnificent. The walls stretch for approximately , and rise to a height of between 5 and 15 metres (16.4–49 ft), with a thickness of at the base of the wall. Altogether, the Old City walls contain 35 towers, of which 15 are concentrated in the more exposed northern wall. Suleiman's wall had six gates, to which a seventh, the New Gate, was added in 1887; several other, older gates, have been walled up over the centuries. The Golden Gate was at first rebuilt and left open by Suleiman's architects, only to be walled up a short while later. The New Gate was opened in the wall surrounding the Christian Quarter during the 19th century. Two secondary gates were reopened in recent times on the southeastern side of the city walls as a result of archaeological work. ==UNESCO status==