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Built on sacred land, Jerusalem offers one of the largest populations in Judea. With so many wishing to live within the city's holy boundaries, a wall has been constructed within the last forty years, defining the border of the city and province and disallowing the construction of homes outside of it. As such, the city is a place many are desperate to live, and yet unable to find a vacant home. Several areas at the very edges of the walls have turned into shantytowns as wooden properties are built in the gaps of the stone ones, offering new residences for the desperate. Jerusalem is incredibly pious and has more temples and sanctuaries than any other area of Judea. It holds festivals and rituals upon every sacred day of the calendar and has an order of the pious whom seek to help the lives of others however they can, living in poverty and offering all they have for the benefit of others. Many are seen walking the streets of Jerusalem, aiding the homeless or the hungry.
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A Judean home is very similar regardless of whose you enter; upper or lower class. The Judean people are about practicalities and so have a standard shape of home - a large entertaining room that often sports a stepped seating area where the family dines around a low table. and a section (usually at a cornered L-shape from the living quarter) dedicated to cooking with an open fire. A bedchamber is a separate room with a raised stone platform on which the mattresses and bedclothes are placed and the richer Judaen homes have rudimentary toilets that are a small addition off the back of the house and are relegated to a stone seat with a hole, build over guttering system that sends waste into nearby stream system and down the river.
Whether a family is rich or poor does not really affect the home in which they live other then to produce slightly smaller or larger sized rooms. The very rich will have separate sleeping chambers for their children but otherwise, offspring sleep in either the bedroom or the living quarters and the parents in the other. The only other difference between the houses of the upper and lower classes is the decoration. Rich Judean homes, instead of being made solely in granite or alabaster stone will be covered in pretty mosaics and designs in tile or glass, making colourful mandalas and designs on both the floors and ceilings. Some even paint their walls to be complimentary shades.
The markets of Jerusalem provide a stark reminder of the biggest problem within the holy city - the lack of housing spaces. Mingled with the stalls that are set up are homeless vagrants begging for money, their clothing filled with holes and scratches. While the vendors and merchants do not mind assisting the homeless, there is only so much they can offer without risking their own livelihood. Holy trinkets and protection charms are sold in abundance here, as are witch doctors and healers in service.
Unlike the haphazard way that the markets are arranged, the shops usually sell more specialized products - items which are finely crafted and wrought from the artisan within. Their wares are usually displayed out front, while the back of the shop functions as a work area for the owner or the merchant themselves.
A place where communion and discussions would happen, and where the people of the city would come to hear news from royal criers as well as speak assistance from their city leaders, the Public Hall is an enclosed space which would get stuffier in the hotter months, but remains a bustling center of activity where all would convene to get updates on anything that went on within their city or kingdom.
A spiritual core of the city, the Holy Sanctuary is situated within constructed walls, and can be accessed through two ways - the underground wall tunnel, or the gates situated on the Western Wall, otherwise known as the 'wailing wall'. The Sanctuary's structure meant that each time the wind blew, the walls would wail due to the wind, which added on to the eerie aspect of it. Many in Jerusalem believed it to be the God's way of speaking to them, and fell silent each time the wails grew louder. The main center of worship is located right in the middle of the large square area the Sanctuary takes up, with two smaller shrines within.
The House of Faith would be where a majority of the priests of the Holy Sanctuary would find their homes. Levites would also reside here, as would priests in training. Every morning, everyone would perform the prayer ritual together, with the High Priest leading the ceremony to purify and bless their city and the people within it. The residential areas closest to the House of Faith would be able to hear the prayers being chanted if they woke up early enough.
An area filled with wooden homes that are rickety and look to be dangerous at best, the shanty town is a result of the overpopulation that has filled the holy city. Many of these haphazardly built wooden homes look seemingly attached to the brick ones, but are in actual fact not, and are just thrown together in a desperate attempt to feel as if they belong in Jerusalem.
