was more delighted with it than any building I ever saw.” It is now, however, much 
defaced, and, like most of the Mahometan structures in Palestine, is sinking into decay. 
The front group consists of Greek Christians, pilgrims to Jerusalem and praying 
towards the Holy Sepulchre. They stand on a terrace of the dilapidated Church of St. 
Anna, which is built over the grotto shown as the birth-place of the Virgin. The 
Mount of Olives is partially seen on the left. In the same direction is the principal 
entrance to the mosque, which no Christian is allowed to pass. The view is taken from the 
terrace, looking down to the Pool of Bethesda; the lower portion of the walls is ancient, 
(the unner part Saracenic,) and may have formed part of the Tower of Antonia. 
1 Roberts’s Journal. Robinson, Biblical Researches, vol. i. p. 415, &c. 
THE TOMB OF ZECHARIAH. 
There are four monumental structures in the Valley of Jehoshaphat, on the east side 
of the Kedron, and opposite to the south-east corner of the Grand Mosque. Those have 
received from monks and travellers the names of the Tombs of Jehoshaphat, St. James, 
Absalom, and Zechariah. The two latter are real monuments of rock, the two former 
are only excavated tombs with ornamented portals. 
The Tomb of Zechariah is so called in allusion to him who was “ slain between the 
temple and the altar.” It is a square block, of about twenty feet on each side, the rock 
having been cut away round it, so as to form an area in which it stands isolated. The 
body of the tomb is about eighteen or twenty feet high, and apparently solid. The sides 
are decorated each with two columns, and two half columns, the latter adjacent to square 
pillars at the corners, and all having capitals of the Ionic order. Round the cornice is an 
ornament of acanthus leaves, about three feet high, and above this the top is formed by 
an obtuse pyramid ten or twelve feet in height. The whole monument has thus an 
elevation of about thirty feet, and, with all its ornaments, is wholly cut out of the solid 
rock. 1 It exhibits a singular mixture of the styles of Greece and Egypt; somewhat of 
the classic elegance of the former, with the massiveness of the latter. 
Robinson, Biblical Researches, vol. i. p. 518. 
