Metropolitan Museum of Art Gilman Collection, Gift of The Howard Gilman Foundation, Accession Number: 2005.100.373.2
Curatorial description (accessed: 3 October 2016)
Salzmann first traveled to Jerusalem at the behest of his friend and fellow archaeologist Félix de Saulcy (1807-1880). Within the scientific societies of Paris, de Saulcy's theories had ignited bitter debates about architectural monuments such as the one depicted here. He identified the wall's rounded protrusion (at center) as the remnant of a double-arched bridge that once connected the platform of Solomon's Temple to Mount Zion, the highest point in ancient Jerusalem. Rival archaeologists held that this formation was a portion of the unfinished foundations of the Al-Aqsa Mosque built above. The plate's title leaves no doubt as to what Salzmann believed and hoped to prove with his photographs.
