Church of All Nations

Master Listing

Hagia Maria Sion Abbey

The Zion Gate
Jerusalem, Israel, 3 March 2009

Overview

On 3 March 2009, Carol and John embarked on a walking tour of Jerusalem. We were part of a Grand Circle Tours group that visited, Israel, Egypt and Jordan. Upon departing from our bus, we were greeted by a slow drizzle. With cameras and umbrellas in hand, our first stop was Jerusalem's “Zion Gate.” The following photos were taken during that visit with a Canon G.10 PowerShot 14.7 megapixel camera. Behind the majority of the thumbnail photos shown below is a full-size (4,416 × 2,480 pixel) 16:9 HD formatted photo (see sample). Although copyrighted © by Skytamer Images, none of the photos contain messy copyright notices. They all look like they came straight out of your camera. Skytamer Archive Subscribers may download all of these photos for their personal use. If you are not currently a subscriber to the Skytamer Archive, click here, or the "Subscribe" button for details. This is a great opportunity for you to augment your own travel photos with a few shots that you may have missed.

Let's start off our visit to Zion Gate by checking out the Old Jerusalem map shown above. This will help orientate you as to the locations various venues that we will be visiting. The Zion Gate is located at the lower left of the map.

Zion Gate, is one of eight gates in the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem. Located in the south of the Old City, facing Mount Zion and Hebron, the Zion Gate leads into the Armenian and Jewish Quarters. Zion Gate is also known as David's Gate, because the tomb of King David is believed to be on Mt. Zion. The gate was built for Suleiman the Magnificent in 1540 CE. In the 19^th century, an area close to the gate was the gathering place of lepers.

In the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, the Palmach gained control of the Jewish Quarter via the Zion Gate. The stones surrounding the gate were pockmarked by weapons fire and bullet holes that are still visible today. The last British troops leaving Jerusalem on May 13, 1948, presented Mordechai Weingarten with the key to the gate. The gate was under the rule of Jordan until the Six-Day War.

Both pedestrians and vehicles use the gate, although maneuvering is difficult due to the L-shaped passageway. Until recently, there was two-way vehicular traffic passing through the gate. Today cars can exit but not enter the Old City via this gate.

Archive Photos

The Skytamer Archive

This concludes our visit to the Zion Gate located in Jerusalem, Israel. To learn more about the Zion Gate, visit the Wikipedia sites noted below. If you like what we have done, please consider subscribing to the Skytamer Archive. When you subscribe, you will have access to thousands of travel and aviation photos for your personal use. Although copyrighted by Skytamer images, our photos do not have any messy copyright notices defacing the photos. All of our photos look like they came straight from your camera ... click here, or the "Subscribe" button for details.

References and Credits

• Shupek, John, "Skytamer Images Photo Archive"
• Google Earth, "Satellite Image"
• Wikipedia, Zion Gate
• Map, Wikipedia, Old City (Jerusalem)