GATES OF TOWNS.—As the gates of towns served the ancients as places of security [Fowl-1Fr CATIONS], a durable material was required for them, and accordingly we find mentioned —1. Gates of iron and brass (Ps. cvii. 16 ; Is. XIV. 2; Acts xii. ro). It is probable that gates thus de scribed were, in fact, only sheeted with plates of copper or iron (Faber, eirchroo/. p. 297) ; and it is probably in this sense we are to interpret the hun dred brazen gates ascribed to the ancient Babylon. Thevenot (Voyage, p. 283) describes the six gates of Jerusalem as covered with iron : which is pro bably still the case with the four gates now open. Other iron-covered gates are mentioned by tra vellers, such as some of the town gates of Algiers (Pitt's Letter, viii. p. ro), and of the towers of the so-called iron bridge at Antioch (Pococke, vol. ii. pt. r, p. 172). The principal gates of the great mosque at Damascus are covered with brass (Maws drell, p. r26). Gates of brass are also mentioned by IIesiod (Theog. 732), by Virgil (zEn. 480-61), and by Pliny (H. N. xxxiv. 3), and of iron by Plautus (Pers. iv. 4, 21).
2. Gates of stone, and of pearls, are mentioned in Is. liV. 12, and Rev. xxi. 21, which,.it has justly been supposed, refer to such doors, cut out of a single slab, as are occasionally discovered in ancient countries. At Essouan (Syene), in Upper Egypt, there is a granite gateway bearing the name of Alexander, the son of Alexander the Great (Wilkinson, iii. 403). The doors leading to the several chambers of the so-called 'Tombs of the Kings,' near Jerusalem, were each formed of a single stone seven inches thick, sculptured so as to re semble four panels : the styles, muntins, and othe. parts were cut with great art, and exactly re sembled those of a door made by a carpenter at the present day—the whole being completely smooth and polished, and most accurate in their propor tions. The doors turned on pivots, of the same stone of vvhich the rest of them were composed, which were inserted in corresponding sockets above and below, the lower tenon being of course short. This is one of the modes in which heavy doors of wood are now hung in the East. One of these doors was still hanging in Maundrell's time, and ` did not touch its lintel by at least three inches.'
But all these doors are now thrown down and broken (Monconys, p. 308 ; Thevenot, p. 261 ; Pococke, ii. 21 ; Maundrell, sub March 2Sth ; Wilde, ii. 299 ; Robinson, i. 530). Similar doors are described by Dr. Clarke (Travels, pt. ii. vol. i. p. 252) in the remarkable excavated sepulchres at Telmessus, on the southern coast of Asia Minor ; and others were noticed by Irby and Mangles (Tixtvels, p. 3o2) in the sepulchres near Bysan (Bethshan). There are stone doors to the houses in the Haouran beyond the Jordan (Durckhardt, p. 58) ; and the present writer has repeatedly seen in the north of Persia the street doors of superior houses composed of a single slab of a kind of slate. In the ancient sepulchre recently discovered, as de scribed by Dr. Wilde (Nan-ative, ii. 343), the outer door is formed by a single slab, and moves on horizonta/ pivots that run into sockets cut in the pilasters at the top, in the manner of a swinging hinge.
3. Gates of wood. —Of this kind were probably the gates of Gaza (Judg. xvi. 3). They had gene rally two valves, which, according to Faber's description (Archaol. p. 3oo), had sometimes smaller doors, or wickets, to afford a passage when the principal gate \vas closed—a fact which he applies to the illustration of Matt. sii. 13.
Gates were generally protected by some works against the surprises of enemies (Jer. xxxix. 4). Sometimes two gates were constructed one behind another, an outer and inner one ; or there were tun-ets on both sides (2 Sam. xviii. 24, 33 ; see Faber's Arehaol. p. 3o1). The gates of the ancients were generally secured with strong heavy bolts and locks of brass or iron (Deut. 5 ; Sam. xxiii. ; Kings iv. 13 ; 2 Chron. viii. 5 ; Jer. xiv. 2 ; XliX. 31 ; Ps. cxlvii. 13). This \vas probably done with a view to the safety of the tovvn, and to prevent hostile inroads (Harmer's Observations, vol. i. p. ISS). The keys of gates, as well as of doors, were generally of wood ; and Thevenot observes that gates might be opened even with the finger put into the keyhole—from which Harmer elucidates the passage in the Song of Solomon, v. 4.