Jerusalem Explored, Volume 1—text: Being a Description of the Ancient and Modern City, with Numerous Illustrations Consisting of Views, Ground Plans and Sections

Pierotti spent eight years living in Jerusalem, digging through its layered streets and scrutinizing its ancient contours, and this book is what emerged: a meticulous, fiercely personal account of a city that has captured human imagination for millennia. Written in 1864, it rejects secondhand authority in favor of direct observation, making it a landmark in 19th-century archaeological literature. Pierotti excavates and maps the city's topography himself, comparing what he finds beneath the surface to what modern Jerusalem presents to the weary traveler. The volume begins with the origin of the city's name and the topographic forces that shaped its peculiar layout, then moves through its climate, population, and the circumstances that made this place what it is. He critiques earlier accounts for their laziness and errors, offering instead a rigorous, firsthand document that remains a primary source for understanding how Victorian scholars saw the Holy Land. For readers interested in the history of archaeology itself, or in the layered identities of Jerusalem, this book offers something rare: the raw material of discovery, unfiltered by later interpretation.