Gehenna
— the valley a word turned into a warning.
Not only on a wall.
“A narrow valley curving south and west of the Old City, between Mount Zion and the slope rising toward the Sherover Promenade. Olive trees, walking paths, the occasional family picnic on the grass. The name carried more weight than the place, a Hebrew phrase, Gei Ben-Hinnom, that left the ground here and became the word for judgment in three traditions. The valley itself, on a Tuesday afternoon, is quiet.
Gehenna, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
The valley known in Hebrew as Gei Ben-Hinnom runs south and west of Jerusalem's Old City walls, joining the Kidron Valley near the southeast corner below the City of David. It sits within Jerusalem Walls National Park, the open green belt the Israel Nature and Parks Authority maintains around the Ottoman fortifications. The valley floor falls roughly seven hundred metres above sea level. In the Hebrew Bible the valley is associated with the high place of Topheth and rites condemned by the prophets Jeremiah and Isaiah; the Greek transliteration Gehenna later became a New Testament word for final judgment.
Today the valley is mostly grass, olive trees, and a paved walking path that loops down from Mount Zion past the old Karaite cemetery toward the Sultan's Pool at the western end. The Hinnom shoulder also holds the Ketef Hinnom burial caves, where in 1979 the archaeologist Gabriel Barkay's team recovered two small silver scrolls inscribed with the Priestly Blessing of Numbers 6, the oldest biblical text known. The valley that named a word for fire mostly holds birdsong now.
The valley's western end opens into the Sultan's Pool, the Mamluk-era reservoir below the Old City's Jaffa Gate, now an open-air amphitheatre that seats around five thousand. From May through September it hosts the city's largest outdoor concerts, with the Jerusalem Festival staging performances since the 1980s. On Jerusalem Day each spring the slopes above fill with families walking the promenade from Mishkenot Sha'ananim past the windmill Moses Montefiore built in 1857. The valley keeps its old name, and a calendar of new uses.