Browse Items (13 total)

This pool, just north of Jaffa Gate, on the west side of the Old City of Jerusalem, is one of several large reservoirs constructed to provide water for the expanding population of Jerusalem during the reign of King Herod the Great (37-4 BCE). It and…

This photograph shows the aqueduct that fed the city of Caesarea Maritima, a port city (notice the waves of the Mediterranean on the left) that King Herod the Great built nearly from scratch between 25-13 BCE. The monumental aqueduct stretches north…

This photograph shows the excavation of the so-called 'sloping tunnel' that led from the entrance to the Warren's Shaft complex to the vertical shaft. It was clearly carved to allow many people to walk through it simultaneously.

This photograph shows the exit of the Siloam Tunnel. The small pool in the foreground was, up until 2004, thought to be the Pool of Siloam. However, in that year a larger, lower pool that dates to the Second Temple Period was found just below this…

This photograph shows the inside of the Siloam Tunnel at the 'place of the join' - that is, midway through the tunnel's length, where the Siloam Tunnel Inscription says that two teams, each cutting from opposite ends, met. The pick marks on the walls…

This cross-section drawing shows the shaft by which inhabitants of Jerusalem obtained water from the Gihon Spring. In the drawing, 7 is the Gihon Spring, 8 is the city wall, and 1 is the entrance into the tunnel system from inside the city. Water…

This photograph shows the modern entrance to the Gihon Spring (the steps leading down in the background), from the inside of the tunnel. This prolific spring provided water for the inhabitants of Jerusalem in antiquity even in the driest summer…

This photograph shows the actual vertical shaft through which people would have lowered buckets from the so-called 'sloping shaft' into the water below. It is unknown when this shaft was created, or even if it was man-made or natural, but it was…

This map shows the plan of the Siloam Tunnel (also known as Hezekiah's Tunnel), which was carved around 701 BCE to reroute the water of the Gihon Spring so that it was accessible to the people living inside Jerusalem's city walls and inaccessible to…

This inscription, which was found carved into the wall at the end of the Siloam Tunnel (also known as [King] Hezekiah's Tunnel), tells the story of the carving of the tunnel. It reads, '…the tunneling. And this was how the tunneling was completed: As…

This photograph shows the modern entrance steps that lead down to the Gihon spring, which was the water source for the city of Jerusalem in antiquity. When Sennacherib, King of Assyria, came to besiege Jerusalem in 701 BCE, the Judahite king Hezekiah…

This photograph shows the inside of the Siloam Tunnel. The water level is higher in the winter than in the summer, this photograph probably having been taken in the winter. The carved ceiling corners and pick marks are clearly visible. The tunnel…

This photograph shows an underground tunnel that was part of Megiddo's water system, which was built in the 9th century BCE. Water was a precious defensive commodity - if a city had any hope of surviving a siege, they had to make sure that their…