A 1750-foot tunnel carved during the reign of Hezekiah (715-686 B.C.) to bring water from one side of the city to the other, is considered to be one of the greatest works of water engineering technology in ancient times.
Discovered by Edward Robinson (1838) and cleared by Montague Parker's team (1909-11), work continues today on the Tunnel and related passageways. Recently workers uncovered some of the archaeological tools and equipment abandoned by the Parker expedition.
The city of Jerusalem, surrounded by a wall and situated on a mountain for natural defenses, suffered from the drawback that its fresh water supply, the Gihon Springs, was outside the city walls. This presented the inhabitants with a strategic weakness. In the event of a siege on the city, the enemy would be able to cut off its fresh water supply.
Hezekiah, fearful of an Assyrian assault on the city, blocked the spring’s upper outlet and diverted it into the Pool of Siloam. The Bible records:
2nd Kings 20:20 "Now the rest of the acts of Hezekiah and all his might, and how he made the pool and the conduit and brought water into the city..."
2nd Chron. 32:30 "It was Hezekiah who stopped the upper outlet of the waters of Gihon and directed them to the west side of the city of David. And Hezekiah prospered in all that he did."
The plan was brilliant and the Bible records his motive:
2nd Chron. 32.3-4 “…he decided with his officers and his warriors to cut off the supply of water from the springs which were outside the city, and they helped him. So many people assembled and stopped up all the springs and the stream which flowed through the region, saying, “Why should the kings of Assyria come and find abundant water?”
A stone was discovered in the tunnel that now is in the hands of the Turkish department of antiquities. The stone had a six-line inscription on it. The decipherable portions of the passage read:
...the tunnel...and this is the story of the tunnel while...the axes were against each other and while three cubits were left to cut...the voice of a man...called to his counterpart (for) there was ZADA in the rock, on the right...and on the day of the tunnel (being finished) the stonecutters struck each man towards his counterpart, ax against ax and flowed water from the source to the pool for 1200 cubits…and 100 (?) cubits was the height over the head of the stonecutters...
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