(a) Mount Sion is bounded on the west by a valley which begins near the old pool called Birket Mamilla (see below, under D), about 1000 feet to the northwest of the hill itself. This valley, following a southeasterly direction as far as the Jaffa Gate, the ancient gate of the gardens (Gennath) (Bell. Jud., V, iv, 2), then turns to the south and forms a great reservoir of water called the Birket es Sultan, by means of a massive dam, which was rebuilt in the twelfth and the sixteenth centuries. This is the Fountain of the Dragon (
tannin) which Nehemias came to when he went out of the city by the western gate (D.V., "dragon fountain ",
Nehemiah 2:13).
Josephus calls it the Pool of the Serpent (Bell. Jud., V, iii, 2); the Hebrew word
tannin simplifies both "dragon" and "serpent". This valley is called by the natives Wadi Rababi; in the Bible it goes by the name of Ge Hinnom, or Ge Ben Hinnom, "Valley of Ennom" (in A.V., Hinnom) or "of the son of Ennom"-an unknown personage (
Joshua 15:8;
18:16;
Nehemiah 11:30;
Jeremiah 19:2). Below the Birket es Sultan, it turns to the east, passes below Halcedama (q.v.), and connects with the Valley of Cedron