Pool of Siloam

Template:For the Template:Short description Template:Use dmy dates Template:Multiple image The term Pool of Siloam (Template:Hebrew name, Template:Langx) refers to several rock-cut pools located southeast of the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem. The pools were fed by the waters of the Gihon Spring, carried there by the Siloam tunnel.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

The Lower Pool or "Old Pool" ({{#invoke:Lang|lang}}, according to Isaiah 22:11<ref name="CODrevisit">The City of David; revisiting early excavations; English translations of reports by Raymond Weill and L-H. Vincent/ notes and comments by Ronny Reich; edited by Hershel Shanks. pp. 197–227.</ref>Template:Efn) was historically known in Palestinian Arabic as Birket el-ḥamra "the Red Pool."

HistoryEdit

Template:Multiple image During the Second Temple period, the Pool of Siloam was centrally located in the Jerusalem suburb of Acra (Template:Langx), also known as the Lower City.<ref>Josephus, The Jewish War 6.6.3 (6.351; 6.7.2. (6.363)</ref> Today, the Pool of Siloam is the lowest place in altitude within the historical city of Jerusalem, with an elevation of about Template:Convert above sea level.<ref name= "AItzhaki1980">Template:Cite book</ref> The ascent from it unto the Temple Mount meant a gradient of Template:Convert in altitude at a linear distance of about Template:Convert, with a mean elevation in the Temple Mount of Template:Convert above sea level.<ref name= "AItzhaki1980"/> According to the Jerusalem Talmud, Hagigah, the Pool of Siloam was the starting point for pilgrims who made the annual pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and where they ascended by foot to the inner court of the Temple Mount to bring an offertory to the Temple Court.<ref>Moses Margolies' commentary Pnei Moshe on Jerusalem Talmud (Hagigah 1:1 3a–b), s.v. Template:Script/Hebrew, being an explanation of Mishnah (Hagigah 1:1), "Anyone that cannot...go up from Jerusalem to the Temple Mount."</ref> The Pool of Siloam (perhaps referring to the Lower Pool) was used by pilgrims for ritual purification before visiting the Temple enclosure.<ref>Template:Cite book, Chapter 7: The City of David / Silwan</ref>

HezekiahEdit

The Pool of Siloam was built during the reign of Hezekiah (715–687/6 BCE) to leave besieging armies without access to the spring's waters. The newly constructed Siloam tunnel fed the pool. An older Canaanite tunnel had been vulnerable to attackers, so, under threat from the Assyrian king Sennacherib, Hezekiah sealed the old outlet of the Gihon Spring and built the new underground Siloam tunnel in place of the older tunnel (Books of Chronicles, Template:Bibleverse).Template:Primary source inline

During this period the Pool of Siloam was sometimes known as the Lower Pool according to Isaiah 22:9, as opposed to the more ancient Upper Pool mentioned in 2 Kings 18:17 and Isaiah 7:3<ref name="CODrevisit"/> formerly fed by the older Canaanite tunnel.

Second Temple periodEdit

File:1730 Street Map or Plan of Jerusalem - Geographicus - Jerusalem-uk-1730.jpg

1730 map showing Jerusalem in Jesus' time, with the Pool of Siloam ("Siloe") outside the city wall at the lower right

File:City of davidDSCN4616.JPG

Artist's reconstruction of the pool in the Second Temple period

The pool was reconstructed no earlier than the reign of Alexander Jannaeus (103–76 BCE), although it is not clear whether this pool was in the same location as the earlier pool built by Hezekiah – if so, all traces of the earlier construction have been destroyed. The pool remained in use during the time of Jesus. According to the John 9, Jesus sent a man blind from birth to the pool to complete his healing. As a freshwater reservoir, the pool would have been a major gathering place for ancient Jews making religious pilgrimages to the city. Some scholars, influenced by Jesus commanding the blind man to wash in the pool, suggest that it was probably used as a mikvah (ritual bath).<ref>Template:Bibleverse</ref>

The pool was destroyed and covered after the First Jewish–Roman War in 70 CE. Dating was indicated by several coins discovered on the stones of the patio near the pool to the north from the days of the War. The latest coin is dated "4 years to the day of the Great Revolt, " meaning 69 CE. In the years following the destruction, winter rains washed alluvia from the hills to the valley and down the slopes of Mount Zion to the west of the pool; the pool was filled with silt layers (up to 4m in some places) until it was covered completely.

Late Roman and Byzantine periodsEdit

File:Siloam72.jpg

The Byzantine pool of Siloam

File:TRISTRAM(1870) p058 THE POOL OF SILOAM.jpg

Handcolored photo of the site (c. 1865)

Roman sources mention a Shrine of the Four Nymphs (Tetranymphon), a nymphaeum built by Hadrian during the construction of Aelia Capitolina in the year 135<ref>Dave Winter, Israel handbook, (1999), p. 180.</ref><ref>André Grabar, Martyrium, (1946), volume 1, p. 193.</ref><ref>E. Wiegand, The Theodosian Monastery, (1929), volume 11, pp. 50–72</ref> and mentioned in Byzantine works such as the 7th-century Chronicon Paschale; other nymphaea built by Hadrian, such as that at Sagalassos, are very similar.<ref>for example, see this view Template:Webarchive</ref> It is unlikely that this shrine was built on the site of the Second Temple Pool of Siloam, but it may have been a precursor to the Byzantine reconstruction.

In the 5th century, a pool was constructed at the end of the Siloam tunnel at the behest of Aelia Eudocia, empress consort of the Byzantine Empire. This pool survives today, surrounded by a high stone wall with an arched entrance to Hezekiah's Tunnel. The pool is around Template:Convert from the Second Temple period Lower Pool and is significantly smaller. Until the discovery of the Second Temple pool, this pool was wrongly thought to be the one described in the New Testament and Second Temple sources.

Discovery in the 21st centuryEdit

File:The Second Temple Pool of Siloam.jpg

Remains of the Pool of Siloam from the Second Temple Period

The pool was rediscovered during an excavation work for a sewer in the autumn of 2004, by Ir David Foundation workers, following a request and directions given by archaeologists Eli Shukron accompanied by Ori Orbach from the Israel Nature and Parks Authority. Shukron and Ronny Reich (working with the Israel Antiquities Authority) uncovered stone steps, and it became obvious that these steps were likely to have been part of the Second Temple period pool. Excavations commenced and confirmed the initial supposition; the find was formally announced on August 9, 2005, and received substantial international media attention.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

The excavations also revealed that the pool was Template:Convert wide, and that steps existed on at least three sides of the pool. The pool is not perfectly rectangular, but a soft trapezoid. There are three sets of five steps, two leading to a platform, before the bottom is reached, and it has been suggested that the steps were designed to accommodate various water levels. The pool is stone-lined, but underneath, there is evidence of an earlier version that was merely plastered (to help it retain water). Coins from the reign of Alexander Jannaeus were found embedded in the plaster lining of the pool, and therefore provide a secure earliest date for the pool's (re-)construction.

For almost two decades after the initial discovery, most of the pool remained unexcavated, as the land above was owned by a nearby Greek Orthodox church and was occupied by an orchard known as the King's Garden (compare Template:Bibleverse). In late December 2022, Israeli police evicted the tenants and turned ownership of the plot over to the Ir David Foundation. Several months later, the Israel Antiquities Authority commenced a complete excavation of this plot in hopes of uncovering the remaining portion of the pool. The excavations surprised archaeologists by uncovering scant additional remains from the pool, with the vast majority of the newly excavated plot revealing no significant archaeological findings at all.<ref name="Hasson">Template:Cite news</ref>

Earlier excavationsEdit

Archaeologists excavating the site around the Pool of Siloam in the 1880s have noted that there was a stairway of 34 rock-hewn steps to the west of the Pool of Siloam leading up from a court in front of the Pool of Siloam.<ref name="QuarterlyStatement1897">Template:Cite journal</ref> The breadth of the steps varies from Template:Convert at the top to Template:Convert at the bottom.<ref name="QuarterlyStatement1897"/>

The remnants of an ancient wall dating to the Bronze Age were unearthed near the older Pool of Siloam, known also as the "Lower Pool," and locally as Birket al-Ḥamrah, during the excavations conducted by F. J. Bliss and A. C. Dickie (1894–1897).<ref name="Yitzhaki">Template:Cite book</ref> At the "Lower Pool" of Siloam there was a weir (levee), used to raise the level of water upstream or to regulate its flow.<ref name="Yitzhaki"/> Conrad Schick's research in connection with a partially rock-hewn aqueduct related to the water system of Siloam has led researchers to conclude that the Lower Pool, Birket al-Ḥamrah, received water directly from the "Fountain of the Virgin" (Gihon Spring) at some period and which Schick places prior to the completion of the Siloam Tunnel.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>cf. Template:Cite book, who writes that the King's Garden was irrigated originally through a canal with side openings, which led the water of the Gihon spring at the edge of the valley to the south, until Hezekiah's Tunnel created a more southern exit for the water, from which the garden could then be irrigated.</ref>

ReferencesEdit

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External linksEdit

Israel Razed the Last Orchard in Silwan in Search of Siloam Pool. It Still Can’t Be Found