Jerusalem has had many walls, running along different lines at different times in her long tortuous history. The present wall that surrounds the Old City is the work of the Ottoman sultan Suleiman the Magnificent (1520-66). The work started in the north in 1537, continued east and west, and finished in the south in 1540.
A large section of this eastern side was built upon the remains of the wall erected by Herod the Great. This short stretch of the wall here is particularly interesting because remnants of the earlier Herodian and Hasmonean walls are also visible above ground.