Tower of David Museum

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Lonely Planet review

The Jaffa Gate area is dominated by the Crusader Citadel, which includes Herod's Tower and the Tower of David minaret. It's occupied by the highly worthwhile Tower of David Museum, which tells the entire history of Jerusalem in a concise and easily digestible format. Revolving art exhibits in the halls and gardens add an especially pleasant angle. There are also good views of the city from the highest ramparts.

One of the highlights is a detailed large-scale model of Jerusalem, made in the late 19th century and discovered almost 100 years later, forgotten in a Geneva warehouse. It's displayed in an underground chamber reached from the central courtyard garden. For blind visitors, there is also a series of relief aluminium models of the city at several stages of its history.

The Citadel started life as the 1st-century palace of Herod the Great. A megalomaniacal builder, Herod furnished his palace with three enormous towers, the largest of which was reputedly modelled on the Pharos of Alexandria, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. The chiselled-block remains of one of the lesser towers still serve as the base of the Citadel's main keep. Following Herod's death the palace was used by the Roman procurators as their Jerusalem residence until it was largely destroyed by Jewish rebels in AD 66. The Byzantines, who came along some 250 years later, mistook the mound of ruins for Mt Zion and presumed that this was David's palace - hence the name Tower of David. They constructed a new fortress on the site.

As Jerusalem changed hands, so did possession of the Citadel, passing to the Muslim armies and then to the Crusaders, who added the moat. It took on much of its present form in 1310 under the Mamluk sultan Malik an-Nasir, with Süleyman the Magnificent making further additions between 1531 and 1538. Süleyman is responsible for the gate by which the Citadel is now entered, and it was on the steps here that General Allenby accepted the surrender of the city on 9 December 1917, ending 400 years of rule by the Ottoman Turks.