* The name Jerusalem occurs under the form Ursalimmu, or Urusalim, in the Tel el-Amarna tablets.  Sion was the name of the citadel preserved by the Israelites after the capture of the place, and applied by them to the part of the city which contained the royal palace, and subsequently to the town itself.

** The Kedron is called a nalial (2 Sam. xv. 23; 1 Kings ii. 37; Jer. xxxi. 40), i.e. a torrent which runs dry during the summer; in winter it was termed a brook.  Excavations show that the fall diminishes at the foot of the ancient walls, and that the bottom of the valley has risen nearly twelve yards.

During the remainder of the year a number of springs, which well up at the bottom of the valley, furnish an unfailing supply of water to the inhabitants of Gibon,* Siloam,** and Eogel.*** The valley widens out again near En-Kogel, and affords a channel to the Wady of the Children of Hinnom, which bounds the plateau on the west.  The intermediate space has for a long time been nothing more than an undulating plain, at present covered by the houses of modern Jerusalem.  In ancient times it was traversed by a depression in the ground, since filled up, which ran almost parallel with the Kedron, and joined it near the Pool of Siloam.**** The ancient city of the Jebusites stood on the summit of the headland which rises between these two valleys, the town of Jebus itself being at the extremity, while the Millo lay farther to the north on the hill of Sion, behind a ravine which ran down at right angles into the valley of the Hedron.

     * Now, possibly, the “Fountain of the Virgin,” but its
     identity is not certain.

     ** These are the springs which feed the group of reservoirs
     now known as the Pool of Siloam.  The name “Siloam” occurs
     only in Neh. iii. 15, but is undoubtedly more ancient.

     *** En-Rogel, the “Traveller’s Well,” is now called the
     “Well of Job.”

**** This valley, which is not mentioned by name in the Old Testament, was called, in the time of Josephus, the Tyropoon, or Cheesemakers’Quarter.  Its true position, which had been only suspected up to the middle of the present century, was determined with certainty by means of the excavations carried out by the English and Germans.  The bottom of the valley was found at a depth of from forty to sixty feet below the present surface.

An unfortified suburb had gradually grown up on the lower ground to the west, and was connected by a stairway cut in the rock* with the upper city.  This latter was surrounded by ramparts with turrets, like those of the Canaanitish citadels which we constantly find depicted on the Egyptian monuments.  Its natural advantages and efficient garrison had so far enabled it to repel all the attacks of its enemies.

     * This is the Ophel of the Hebrew text.