In 1867, the British explorer Captain Charles Warren surveyed Hezekiah's Tunnel using a measuring tape, compass, notebook, and pencil. Nowadays a walk through the tunnel is a pleasant way to spend a half hour on a hot summer day, with the water usually rising no higher than hip level. However, conditions were different in the nineteenth century. First, because there were no flashlights, Warren and his companions (Sergeant Birtles and a local villager) had to use candles. Second, the floor of the tunnel was covered with a thick layer of crusty mud silt that reduced the height of the tunnel. Warren and his companions entered from the outlet end (the pool of Siloam), because the ceiling is higher there, which made access easier. Warren's visit was complicated by the fact that the water began rising soon after they entered the tunnel. The Gihon spring is a karstic spring, which means that the water gushes and abates intermittently (like a geyser). Finally, Warren and his companions conducted the survey in the month of December, when the water and air temperature are quite cold. They ended up spending four hours in the tunnel. The following is Warren's account of his visit, in his own words:
In the month of December 1867, I made a thorough examination and survey of the passage leading from the Virgin's Fount [Gihon spring] to Siloam. We entered from the Siloam end, so as to have as much clean work as possible.
For the first 350 feet it was plain sailing... At 450 feet the height of the passage was reduced to 3 feet 9 inches.... At 600 feet it is only 2 feet 6 inches high.. . .
Our difficulties now commenced. Sergeant Birtles, with a Fellah (villager), went ahead, measuring with tape, while I followed with compass and field book. The bottom is a soft silt, with a calcerous crust at the top, strong enough to bear human weight, except in a few places, where it let us down with a flop.... The mud silt is from 15 inches to 18 inches deep.
We were now crawling on all fours, and thought we were getting on very pleasantly, the water being only 4 inches deep, and we were not wet higher than our hips. Presently bits of cabbage-stalks came floating by, and we suddenly awoke to the fact that the waters were rising. The Virgin's Fount is used as a sort of scullery to the Silwan Village, the refuse thrown there being carried off down the passage each time the water rises. The rising of the waters had not been anticipated, as they had risen only two hours previous to our entrance.
At 850 feet the height of the channel was reduced to 1 foot 10 inches, and here our troubles began. The water was running with great
Violence, 1 foot in height, and we, crawling full length, were up to our necks in it.
I was particularly embarrassed: one hand necessarily wet and dirty, the other holding a pencil, compass, and field-book; the candle for the most part in my mouth. Another 50 feet brought us to a place where we had regularly to run the gauntlet of the waters. The passage being only 1 foot 4 inches high, we had just 4 inches breathing space, and had some difficulty in twisting our necks round properly. When observing, my mouth was under water.
At 900 feet we came upon two false cuttings, one on each side of the aqueduct. They go in for about 2 feet each.. . . Just here I involuntarily swallowed a portion of my lead pencil for a minute or two.
We were now going in a zigzag direction towards the northwest, and the height increased to 4 feet 6 inches, and at 1100 feet we were again crawling with a height of only 1 foot 10 inches.
We should probably have suffered more from the cold than we did, had not our risible faculties been excited by the sight of our Fellah in front plunging and puffing through the water like a young grampus. At 1150 feet the passage again averaged in height 2 feet to 2 feet 6 inches; at 1400 feet we heard the sound of water dripping.. . .
At 1450 feet we commenced turning to the east, and the passage attained a height of 6 feet; at 1658 feet we came upon our old friend, the passage leading to the Ophel Shaft [Warren's Shaft], and, after a further advance of 50 feet, to the Virgin's Fount. . . .
When we came out it was dark and we had to stand shivering for some minutes before our clothes were brought us; we were nearly 4 hours in the water.
Only did this pool store excess water from the Gihon spring, but the distinctive arrangement of the steps surrounding it on all sides — with alternating deep and narrow treads — indicates that it was used as a ritual bath [miqveh] (see Chapter 6). The pool's size suggests that it served the masses of Jewish pilgrims who made their way up the Tyropoean Valley to the Temple Mount, by way of a paved street that Reich and Shukron have also uncovered. Reich and Shukron identify this as the pool of Siloam in the late Second Temple period, where the Gospel of John (9) says that Jesus healed a blind man.
Recommended Reading
Gcista W. Ahlstrcim, The History of Ancient Palestine (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1994).
Dan Bahat, The Illustrated Atlas of Jerusalem (Jerusalem: Carta, 1990).
William G. Dever, Who Were the Early Israelites and Where Did They Come From? (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2003).
Avraham Faust, Israel's Ethnogenesis, Settlement, Interaction, Expansion and Resistance (London: Equinox, 2006).
Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman, The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts (New York: Free Press, 2001). Philip J. King and Lawrence E. Stager, Life in Biblical Israel (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2001).
Amihai Mazar, Archaeology of the Land of the Bible, 10,000-586 B. C.E. (New York: Doubleday, 1990).
Ronny Reich, Excavating the City of David, Where Jerusalem's History Began (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 2011).
World History
