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When Herod the Great built his palace in Jerusalem, he selected the most suitable location for it; on top of a hill, which Josephus said possessed an additional crest. At the entrance, he constructed three imposing towers. He gave each of them a name; Mariamne (named after his wife [whom he murdered] and the most beautiful of the towers), Hippicus (named after a friend who some think died while fighting for Herod), and Phasael (named after his brother and the largest of the towers at 145 feet tall).
Photo taken at the Jerusalem Model in the Israeli Museum
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All three towers were situated near where the Jaffa Gate is today. These towers protected the
main entrance to the city. The
base of Phasael Tower sits in a dry moat inside the Jaffa Gate by the Citadel.
This used to be the northwest corner of Jerusalem in Herod's day. (The base is seen in the lower left corner of the photo below.)
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Of the original three, only the base of Phasael's Tower is visible today. Three distinct sections are seen; the lower section was built on an incline, part of Herod's defense strategy, the middle section, also part of Herod's original tower, and the top portion, built by Suleiman the Magnificent around 1535 AD.
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