| The Upper
City After Jesus' arrest in the Garden of Gethsemani, where was he taken? The gospels say it was "to Annas, the father-in-law of Caiaphas"(Jn 18,12-13) "to Caiaphas" (Mt 26,57) or "to the high priest"(Mk 14, 53) or "to the high priest's house" (Lk 22,54). Most likely the place was somewhere in Jerusalem's Upper City, where influential Jews of Jesus' day lived in large splendid houses, many built during Herod the Great's massive reconstruction of the city.  Illustration: Ancient stairway to the Upper City. Connected directly to the temple by a viaduct over the Tyropoean Valley, the Upper City was a convenient home for families and officials with temple duties. Recently archeologists have excavated some of these homes, constructed in the style of 1st century Roman villas, with courtyards and elegant furnishings. Like the rest of Jerusalem, the Upper City was destroyed by fire in the Roman siege of 70 A.D. After the city was rebuilt on a smaller scale by Hadrian in the 2nd century, there is evidence of a small Jewish-Christian church located in the southerly outskirts of Aelia Capitolina, called by Christians, "Mount Sion." Early Christian traditions mark this as the place of Pentecost, the upper room, where the Holy Spirit descended on the apostles after Jesus' resurrection. Somewhat later it was honored as the Cenacle where Jesus ate the Last Supper. By the 4th century the house of Caiaphas was also located in this vicinity. Today the modern church of the Dormitian is the most prominent Christian shrine marking the ancient Christian "Mount Sion."
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