Page 52 - Holyland Magazine - 2016 Edition

sieges, concealing the water source and
diverting it into the city under the walls was a toward his fellow... there was heard a man's
strategic advantage that helped the besieged
population to withstand enemy attacks for
many months. This was the case with the
major waterworks of Tel Beersheba not far
from “Abraham’s well,” as well as Tel Hazor in
the Northern Galilee and Tel Megiddo in the
Jezreel Valley. Their marvelous engineering
led UNESCO to declare them World Heritage
Sites. In all of these walled cities, which were waterway from its source to the reservoir
fortified during or shortly after the reign
of King Solomon (10th century CE), deep
stepped shafts were dug from within the
city to reach horizontal tunnels. These went
under the city walls to the water source,
which was concealed from the outside.
Some 350 years later, during the Assyrian
siege of Jerusalem, the reigning King
Hezekiah (727-698 BCE) excavated a
tunnel to bring water from the Gihon spring
to within the walls of the city. The famous
Siloam inscription bears witness to this
extraordinary feat (II Kgs 20:20; II Chr
32:30). Discovered in 1880 by a boy who
was bathing in the spring, the inscription
is an engraving in the rock, describing the
meeting of the two groups of hewers who
had begun digging from opposite ends of
the tunnel. “The tunneling was completed...
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While the hewers wielded the ax, each man
voice calling to his fellow... the hewers
hacked each toward the other, ax against ax,
and the water flowed from the spring to the
pool, a distance of 1,200 cubits...”
With a flashlight in hand and the appropriate
footwear, this is one of the most exciting
tours of Jerusalem, following the ancient
where Jesus healed a blind man. (John 9:1-
11).
The aqueducts
As cities grew and new lifestyles were
introduced during the Hellenistic (332-
67 BCE) and Roman (67 BCE-324 CE)
conquests, new technologies allowed water
to be brought to the cities from distant
sources instead of requiring direct access
to a water source. The flowing water was
used for fountains, pools, public baths and
bathhouses, which required much more
water than local springs could supply.
The Romans mobilized military engineers for
the immense task of supplying enough water
to meet the ever-growing needs of cities
like Caesarea or Jerusalem. For Jerusalem,
several springs were diverted into the large
The Shiloah spring flows from its source
under the stairs through Hezekiah tunnel into
Jerusalem. Photo: Max Richardson.
Left below: The secret passage of Warren's
Shaft allowed the besieged population to safely
reach Jerusalem's water reservoir. Photo:
couretsy of Elad, the Ir David Foundation.
reservoirs of Solomon's Pools, some 16
miles south of the city. Part of the distance
was covered by using open channels,
while other sections ran through tunnels
that traverse mountain ridges. The Roman
engineers used pipes to siphon the water
across valleys.
Jerusalem needed this supplementary water
supply primarily during pilgrimages to the
Temple when ritual baths and sacrifices
demanded large quantities of water. It was
during such a pilgrimage that Jesus was
brought to trial by the Roman Governor
Pontus Pilate, who showed his complete
insensitivity to Jewish customs by stealing
funds from the Temple in Jerusalem to fund
the building of an aqueduct according to
historians of the time Philo of Alexandria and
Josephus Flavius.
Understanding the importance of wells,
cisterns, pools and aqueducts in their
geographical and biblical context can teach
us much about the landscape, culture and
environment from which the immortal stories
of the Bible emerged.