3-021-506 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Explorations at Jerusalem: Wilson's Arch, Haram Wall, 1869. '...here we have the whole arch complete, and it is only one of a series forming an approach from the western city to the inclosure of the Temple...Captain Wilson was the first to unearth the arch, and Lieutenant Warren has penetrated along most of the other arches, making some very curious discoveries. The only entrance to this arch is through a door high up, with a rope ladder for the means of descent. The wall here is the western wall of the Haram inclosure...The stones of the wall are here similar to those at the "Jews' Wailing-place"- no very large ones are visible. A shaft was sunk at the pier...On descending the shaft which he had sunk under Wilson's arch, to a depth of 41 ft., Lieutenant Warren found a series of vaults, tanks, and aqueducts, with a passage running from east to west, apparently forming a secret communication between the Temple and the city, which he regards as "the key to underground Jerusalem." Several of the vaulted chambers here are thought to be of Saracenic origin, while others are Jewish. Captain Wilson, after whom the arch above this spot is named, was the Engineer officer who made the Ordnance survey of Jerusalem a few years ago'. From "Illustrated London News", 1869.