240 HAUPT— GOLGOTHA. 



Holy Sepulcher. But the Dome of the Rock, also misnamed the 

 Mosque of Omar, was erected by Abd-al-Malik in 691, and the 

 mosaic map discovered at Medeba in 1896 shows the Church of 

 the Holy Sepulcher in its present location. This map formed the 

 floor of a basilica built in the fifth or sixth centuries. 



I believe that the Crucifixion took place at the Topheth in the 

 Valley of Hinnom, south of the Harsith Gate in the southeastern 

 corner of Jerusalem. This gate was also called Ashpoth Gate 

 which is generally mistranslated Dung Gate ; but Ashpoth is the 

 Hebrew form of Topheth, i.e., Aram, tcfdth with the vowels of 

 bosheth, shame, because the Jews did not pronounce the objection- 

 able word Topheth, but substituted for it bosheth, shame (JBL 37, 

 233). In the same way the names of Astarte and Melech, the god 

 of the Ammonites, appear in the Hebrew Bible as Ashtoreth and 

 Molech, respectively. Also the name of the valley (now filled up 

 with rubbish) between the eastern and western hills, which led to 

 the Topheth in the Valley of Hinnom, was Topheth valley. The 

 name Tyropccon (EB" 15. 332) valley, given by Josephus, is due 

 to a misunderstanding of the original Hebrew name ge-hash- 

 shephoth, in which shcphoth (cf. Neh. 3, 13) is the Hebrew form 

 of the Aramaic tephdth, Topheth, but it was misinterpreted as 

 cheeses (Tyropoeon, twv rupoTroiaiv means of the cheesemakers) on 

 the basis of 2 Sam. 17, 29 (EB 3091. 2423, n. 4). According to 

 Wetzstein (ZAT 3, 276) shcphoth in 2 Sam. 17, 29 denotes thick 

 cream of cow's milk (not ewe's milk) in small wooden cylinders 

 (see cut in RB 1742). In Damascus, cream is called shifd-'l halibi, 

 top of the milk {cf. Austrian Obcrs). The word in 2 Sam. 17, 29 

 should be spelled with Shi (not Shin). 



Topheth (more correctly Tephdth, Heb. Shcphoth or Ashpoth) 

 means fire-place, cremator, incinerator. Refuse and rubbish were 

 deposited there, especially potsherds. Harsith (i.e., potsherd-dump) 

 corresponds to the Roman Monte Testaccio (Lat. Mons Testaceus) 

 on the left bank of the Tiber in the southwestern corner of Rome. 

 This accumulation of potsherds is about 2,500 feet in circumference, 

 and about 115 feet high. The Mons Testaceus of Jerusalem was 

 also called Potter's Field, and afterwards Field of Blood, because 



