Lions' Gate ( he, שער האריות, Sha'ar ha-Arayot, Lions' Gate, ar, باب الأسباط, Bab al-Asbat, Gate of the Tribes), also St Stephen's Gate, is one of the seven open

Gates of the Old City of Jerusalem This article lists the gates of the Old City of Jerusalem. The gates are visible on most old maps of Jerusalem over the last 1,500 years. During different periods, the city walls followed different outlines and had a varying number of gates. Du ...

. It leads into the Muslim Quarter of the Old City.

History

The start of the traditional

Christian Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words ''Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρι� ...

observance of the last walk of

Jesus Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label= Hebrew/ Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and relig ...

from prison to

crucifixion Crucifixion is a method of capital punishment in which the victim is tied or nailed to a large wooden cross or beam and left to hang until eventual death from exhaustion and asphyxiation. It was used as a punishment by the Persians, Carthagi ...

, the

Via Dolorosa The ''Via Dolorosa'' (Latin, 'Sorrowful Way', often translated 'Way of Suffering'; ar, طريق الآلام; Hebrew: ויה דולורוזה) is a processional route in the Old City of Jerusalem. It represents the path that Jesus would have t ...

, begins at the Lions' Gate, called St Stephen's Gate by Christians. Carved into the wall above the gate are four lions, two on the left and two on the right.

Suleiman the Magnificent Suleiman I ( ota, سليمان اول, Süleyman-ı Evvel; tr, I. Süleyman; 6 November 14946 September 1566), commonly known as Suleiman the Magnificent in the West and Suleiman the Lawgiver ( ota, قانونى سلطان سليمان, Ḳ ...

had the carvings made to celebrate the Ottoman defeat of the

Mamluks Mamluk ( ar, مملوك, mamlūk (singular), , ''mamālīk'' (plural), translated as "one who is owned", meaning " slave", also transliterated as ''Mameluke'', ''mamluq'', ''mamluke'', ''mameluk'', ''mameluke'', ''mamaluke'', or ''marmeluke'') ...

in 1517. Legend has it that Suleiman's predecessor

Selim I Selim I ( ota, سليم الأول; tr, I. Selim; 10 October 1470 – 22 September 1520), known as Selim the Grim or Selim the Resolute ( tr, links=no, Yavuz Sultan Selim), was the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1512 to 1520. Despite las ...

dreamed of lions that were going to eat him because of his plans to level the city. He was spared only after promising to protect the city by building a wall around it. This led to the lion becoming the heraldic symbol of Jerusalem. Murphy-O'Connor, Jerome, ''The Holy Land: an Oxford archaeological guide from earliest times to 1700'', 2008, p. 21, Historian Moshe Sharon notes the similarity of the sculpted felines to similar pairs at Jisr Jindas and

Qasr al-Basha Qasr al-Basha ( ar, قصر الباشا), also known as Pasha's Palace Museum, Radwan Castle and Napoleon's Fort, is a historical palace situated in the Old City of Gaza, now housing a museum and a girls' school. It served as a seat of power in t ...

in Gaza. All represent the same

Mamluk Mamluk ( ar, مملوك, mamlūk (singular), , ''mamālīk'' (plural), translated as "one who is owned", meaning " slave", also transliterated as ''Mameluke'', ''mamluq'', ''mamluke'', ''mameluk'', ''mameluke'', ''mamaluke'', or ''marmeluke'') ...

sultan,

Baibars Al-Malik al-Zahir Rukn al-Din Baybars al-Bunduqdari ( ar, الملك الظاهر ركن الدين بيبرس البندقداري, ''al-Malik al-Ẓāhir Rukn al-Dīn Baybars al-Bunduqdārī'') (1223/1228 – 1 July 1277), of Turkic Kipchak ...

. Sharon estimates that they all date to approximately 1273 C.E. Sharon, 2009, p
58
and pl. 6. The gate is part of the city's extant walls, built by Ottoman Sultan Suleiman in 1538. The walls stretch for approximately and rise to a height of , with a thickness of . All together, the Old City walls contain 43 surveillance towers and 11 gates, seven of which are presently open. In 1967, it was through this gate that Israeli paratroopers broke into the Old City of Jerusalem, occupied, along with the rest of

East Jerusalem East Jerusalem (, ; , ) is the sector of Jerusalem that was held by Jordan during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, as opposed to the western sector of the city, West Jerusalem, which was held by Israel. Jerusalem was envisaged as a separ ...

and the whole

West Bank The West Bank ( ar, الضفة الغربية, translit=aḍ-Ḍiffah al-Ġarbiyyah; he, הגדה המערבית, translit=HaGadah HaMaʽaravit, also referred to by some Israelis as ) is a landlocked territory near the coast of the Mediter ...

, from

Jordan Jordan ( ar, الأردن; tr. ' ), officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan,; tr. ' is a country in Western Asia. It is situated at the crossroads of Asia, Africa, and Europe, within the Levant region, on the East Bank of the Jordan Rive ...

at the time. Image:Loewentor Leoparden.jpg, Detail of Lions' Gate carvings, actually

leopard The leopard (''Panthera pardus'') is one of the five extant species in the genus '' Panthera'', a member of the cat family, Felidae. It occurs in a wide range in sub-Saharan Africa, in some parts of Western and Central Asia, Southern Russia, ...

sJerusalem municipality website
(panthers). File:Indian and British guards, St. Stephen's Gate, Jerusalem LOC matpc.00756.jpg, British imperial troops from

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area, the List of countries and dependencies by population, second-most populous ...

and

Britain Britain most often refers to: * The United Kingdom, a sovereign state in Europe comprising the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland and many smaller islands * Great Britain, the largest island in the United King ...

guard the gate in 1920

References

Bibliography

External links

Photos of the gate
at the Manar al-Athar photo archive
The Old City Gates: www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org
{{Old City (Jerusalem), state=collapsed Gates in Jerusalem's Old City Walls Muslim Quarter (Jerusalem)

History

See also

References

Bibliography

External links