Walls of Jerusalem
| The Old City of Jerusalem and its Walls | |
|---|---|
| Name as inscribed on the World Heritage List | |
 |
|
| Location | No nation named by UNESCO Site proposed by Jordan |
| Type | Cultural |
| Criteria | ii, iii, vi |
| Reference | 148 |
| UNESCO region | Jerusalem District |
| Inscription history | |
| Inscription | 1981 (5th Session) |
| Endangered | 1982- |
The Walls of Jerusalem (Arabic: أسوار القدس; Hebrew: חומות ירושלים) surround the Old City of Jerusalem (approx. 1 km²). In 1535, when Jerusalem was part of the Ottoman Empire, Sultan Suleiman I ordered the ruined city walls to be rebuilt. The work took some four years, between 1537 and 1541.
The length of the walls is 4,018 meters (2.4966 mi), their average height is 12 meters (39.37 feet) and the average thickness is 2.5 meters (8.2 feet). The walls contain 34 watchtowers and seven main gates open for traffic, with two minor gates reopened by archaeologists.
In 1981, the Jerusalem walls were added, along with the Old City of Jerusalem, to the UNESCO World Heritage Site List.
Today the walls of Jerusalem, which were originally built to protect the city against intrusions, mainly serve as an attraction for tourists.
The city of Jerusalem has been surrounded by walls for its defense since ancient times. In the Middle Bronze Age, a period also known in biblical terms as the era of the Patriarchs, a city named Jebus was built on the south-eastern hill of Jerusalem, relatively small (50,000 square meters) but well fortified. Remains of its walls are located above the Siloam Tunnel. The identification of Jebus with Jerusalem has been disputed, principally by Niels Peter Lemche. Supporting his case, every non-biblical mention of Jerusalem found in the ancient Near East refers to the city as 'Jerusalem'. An example of these records are the Amarna letters which are dated to the 14th century BCE, several of which were written by the chieftain of Jerusalem Abdi-Heba and call Jerusalem either Urusalim (URU ú-ru-sa-lim) or Urušalim (URU ú-ru-ša10-lim) (1330s BCE). Also in the Amarna letters, it is called Beth-Shalem, the house of Shalem.
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