O Jerusalem

This attractive new volume joins dozens of late-19th and early-20th century photographs of Jerusalem with a commentary drawn from contemporary travelogues and letters, many of them cited at length. The effect is to convey in considerable detail the sights and sounds of Ottoman Jerusalem. We find, for example, the following description of a visit to the Al-Aqsa Mosque:

“The black fanatics who guard the holy place lounged among the trees, and a funeral procession was slowly marching, with subdued murmurs round the Chapel of the Rock, while, by a curious coincidence, a gorgeous wedding-party in bright coloured silks, was also 046approaching the same place. The great enclosure outside the platform is not paved; it is covered in grass and planted with olives and cypresses. Only the platform is fairly level, and its flagging in parts is covered with Crusading masons’ marks.”