City of David and Hezekiah's Tunnel

July 10, 2013  Tuesday

Today was the 10th birthday of Elias, the son of Willy, one of our area supervisors.  Willy is American, his wife Tina is German, and the family lives in Jerusalem.  Tina and the children have visited our site several times, and have brought us treats like cold, juicy watermelon.  This is a wonderful family, with sweet, well-behaved children.  Another baby will arrive in a couple of months.  The children are home-schooled and speak English, German, and Hebrew.  Happy Birthday Elias!

Here's some birthday entertainment, courtesy of Carsten.

Today after the dig day, we embarked on the outing we've anticipated since we got here: a visit to the City of David.  We had already been in the north end when we went to the Givati Parking Lot dig, but today we have lots more planned.  Elias is joining us as a special birthday treat, and his father Willy is our tour guide.  Willy is on the far right.  There are only about 10 of us on this trip.

The City of David is the oldest settled part of Jerusalem.  This map shows the boundaries in 1000 BC, the time of King David.

The area is still "thickly settled" (one of my favorite New England expressions), but underneath the modern apartments and homes are vast ancient structures and archaeological sites.  This modern aerial view of the southeast corner of the Old City includes the City of David, outlined in red.  It's actually a narrow ridge or bluff, with the Kidron Valley on the east and the Tyropoeon Valley (now called the Central Valley) on the west.

Today the Central Valley is mostly filled in, but it ancient times the topography of the city meant that any invaders first had to cross valleys to get to the walls.

First we stood on the ridge and looked looked to the northeast.  Here we see the Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives.

Looking due east, we can see the (mostly) Palestinian village of Silwan (Siloam).

Looking south, we can see the southern end of Silwan.  We also see the Kidron Valley better, with a paved road where an ancient stream once flowed.  In the New Testament, John 18 describes how Jesus crossed this valley in order to get to Gethsemane on the Mount of Olives.

Zooming in ... part of the stairway down is visible in the lower left corner.  We'll go down and enter the excavations under the buildings at the bottom.

After the first part of our descent, we arrived at the ticketing area.  The middle arch in the background encloses a large stylized harp, which is the touristy logo for things related to David.

This sign describes what we are going to do.

We started with a 3-D movie.  View the trailer here.

When we came out of the movie, we were ready to descend the stairs to antiquity.  Actually, these particular excavations have been turned into an "archaeological park", complete with scaffolding.  This is what can happen to your archaeological dig if you have a big budget and a lot of public interest!

Even though we are at least one layer below street level, there seems to be some natural light.  

Soooo... we just might be looking at King David's palace!

This stepped-stone structure is the "millo" -- a massive wall and rampart that pre-dates King David.  That means it was built around 1200 BC, and modified by David around 1000 BC.

Down MORE stairs.  We heading roughly south towards the Siloam Pool.

What is Willy pointing out to us?

Answer:  a toilet, in its own little room!  There's a cesspool beneath this block.

Two more views of the biffy and the rooms surrounding it:

The modern-looking platform protects part of the remains of a four-room house from 650 BC.

This is the house of a man named Ahiel, and this was his toilet. Isn't archaeology fun?

One area had been burned.

This one is really is a monumental structure!  Its official name is the Large Stone Structure, and it was discovered less than 20 years ago.

Eventually we arrived at the Gihon Spring, the main water source for the City of David.  One last look at the ancient fortifications:

And we're about to go underground!

I explained a little about Hezekiah's tunnel in a previous post.  Here's one last explanatory sign before we enter the tunnel:

The sign is a little dark, but then the tunnel is dark too!  Carsten took lots of photos and helped light the way with his flash.  Most of us had flashlights too.

In fact it's totally dark down there.

Going DOWN stairs has been really hard on my knee, so I'll swing down instead.

We're already standing in water.  Smile!

The tunnel is getting narrower ... We're not yet in Hezekiah's tunnel, just making our way under the large buildings and fortifications.

We pause to put our camera in a baggie.  We're thankful to Carsten for taking all these pictures of us!  (Yes I am down here with a cane.)

Just before we enter the actual tunnel we pause to look at the end of Warren's Shaft, named after the British engineer who (re)discovered it in 1867.  Warren's Shaft includes a 45-foot vertical passageway that is generally thought to be the "shaft" or "gutter" referred to in 2 Samuel 5:8 when David was capturing the city that became Jerusalem.  David's nephew, Joab, was able to go up the shaft and open the city gates so the city could be taken.

This cut-away drawing of the City of David shows how the system is configured, along with the path we took.  Hezekiah's tunnel was built around 701 BC, about 300 years after Joab's use of the water shaft.

This isn't so bad~

Getting narrower ...

Very cozy, and water up to our knees!

The tunnel is about 5' high now.  The marks of the stonecutters' pickaxes are clearly visible.  That gal with the cane looks like she's having fun!

Thanks to the water in the tunnel, we finally learn what color Carsten's muddy shoes are.

In the middle of the tunnel, there was an inscription from 701BC, describing how the tunnel was cut.  The original inscription is in a Turkish museum, but there is a replica near the end of the tunnel.

Here's what the inscription says:

... 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 ...

Essentially, the stonecutters started on the two ends and met in the middle.  Amazing!  When there were three cubits left to cut (about 4.5 feet), they could hear each others' voices.  "Zada" might mean a crack or fissure in the rock that allowed them to hear each other.

Good thing we've lost some weight!

 We're out!  It took us about a half hour to make the entire trek, but it seemed longer even though it was only 1/3 mile.

A short distance after exiting the tunnel, we are at the Siloam Pool, or at least what remains of it.  A pool was originally built by King Hezekiah – 700+ years before Christ – and was fed by the Gihon Spring.  Centuries later, the Siloam Pool was refurbished and greatly expanded by King Herod.  It functioned as a ritual purification site for those who wanted to ascend onto the temple mount – a sort of mass mikveh.  These stairs are Herodian.

The pool was finally identified only recently, in 2004, debunking once and for all the unsatisfactory "traditional" site.  Excavations are ongoing;  in fact less than half of the pool has been uncovered so far.

The New Testament contains the account of Jesus healing a man who was blind from birth.  He told the man to go and wash in the Pool of Siloam.  (John 9)

Here's one more map, showing the route we took through the tunnel.  This was a supremely fun experience, and we're so glad we did it!

We had one more tunnel to pass through before re-entering the modern world:

Pete's going to be so glad when he can stand up straight again!  At least there's no water in this tunnel.

Final photo from a very fun afternoon.  (Green algae growth on the walls is encouraged by those fluorescent lights.)