TYROPOEON. - Name given by Flavius Josephus (Antiq. Ind., V, 4, 1: ἡ τῶν τυροποιῶν φάραγξ "valley of the cheesemakers") to the valley that in his time divided the hill of the upper city from that of the lower city of Jerusalem (v.), called today by the Arabs el-wād ("the valley"), which descends from the Damascus Gate to the fountain of Siloam, where it joins the valleys of the Kidron and of Hinnom.

In antiquity the T. formed the western boundary of the Canaanite city of Jerusalem, later occupied by David and Solomon, confined to the eastern hill of Ophel (v.), and not a few Palestinian scholars are of the opinion that its original name was Gè Ben Hinnóm, that is, the name of the "valley" which from south to north, along "the side of the Jebusite, that is, of Jerusalem," marked the boundaries of the tribe of Judah and of Benjamin (Ios. 15, 8; 18, 16). Later, when the city had expanded onto the western hill, the old geographical name of Gè Ben Hinnóm would have come to designate the valley (v. GEHENNA), today er-Rabâhl, which surrounds the upper city on the west, on the western hill. This exegetical and topographical interpretation is, however, still controversial.

Bibliography3 works

BIBL.: H. Vincent, Jérusalem, I, Paris 1912, pp. 124-34; J. W. Crowfoot - G. M. Fitzgerald, Excavations in the T. valley (Pal. fund. annual. 5), London 1929, p. 22; A. Fernandez, Problemas de topogr. palestinense, Barcelona 1936, pp. 181-89.

Donato Baldi

@incollection{ec12_tyropoeon, author = {Baldi, Donato}, title = {Tyropoeon}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {XII}, pages = {653}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1954}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/tyropoeon} }

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