Pool of Siloam

{{multiple image During the Second Temple period, the Pool of Siloam was centrally located in the Jerusalem suburb of Acra (), also known as the Lower City. Today, the Pool of Siloam is the lowest place in altitude within the historical city of Jerusalem, with an elevation of about above sea level. The ascent from it unto the Temple Mount meant a gradient of in altitude at a linear distance of about , with a mean elevation in the Temple Mount of above sea level. The Pool of Siloam (perhaps referring to the Lower Pool) was used by pilgrims for ritual purification before visiting the Temple enclosure. Hezekiah 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, ). 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 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 periods pool of Siloam 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 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. 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 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 century==

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. The excavations also revealed that the pool was 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 until 2004 (when it was sold to a Jewish development company), and was occupied by an orchard known as the King's Garden (compare ). In late December 2022, the Israeli Supreme Court ordered the eviction of the tenants and turned ownership of the plot over to the City of David Foundation. but later investigations allowed for carbon dating the pool to roughly 800 BCE, at the time of King Jehoash of Judah. Those investigations indicated the pool may have been built to supply the city with water during times of climate change, and found that the pool was larger than expected at 19 m × 10 m × 11 m. In 2023, it was announced that the steps to the pool, where Jesus was said to have healed a blind man, were found. Earlier excavations 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. The breadth of the steps varies from at the top to at the bottom. At the "Lower Pool" of Siloam there was a weir (levee), used to raise the level of water upstream or to regulate its flow. == See also ==