Canal where 'Jesus gave sight' found
12/24/04
An elaborately paved assembly area and water channel that carried rainwater to the pool of Shiloah (Siloam) during the Second Temple period were uncovered several days ago by archeologists digging in Jerusalem's ancient City of David, the Israel Antiquities Authority announced Thursday.
The latest finds at the site, in the present-day Arab village of Silwan, come just six months after Israeli archeologists first stumbled upon the 2,000-year-old pool while the city was carrying out infrastructure work for a new sewage pipe in the area. The archeologists uncovered several steps leading down to the pool, whose water came from the nearby Gihon spring.
Recent excavations at the site, on the southern edge of the City of David, have indicated that the pool was used for ritual immersion, and not necessarily as a reservoir as previously thought, the Antiquities Authority said.
The Talmud refers to the pool as the water source for libations during Succot, festivities known as Simhat Beit Hashoeva. The waters of the Shiloah spring were used in purification ceremonies. Christian tradition considers the site to be the area where Jesus performed the miracle of restoring the sight of a blind man, as recounted in the New Testament Book of John.
Coins found at the site date back to the first century BCE.
"It is amazing to see and learn what happened here 2,000 years ago," said President Moshe Katsav as he and his wife, Gila, made their way down the newly uncovered flight of steps toward the site, quipping that the water flowing through the honey–colored rocks was cleaner than the tap water in his own house.
The pool has long been a focus of archeological research. Two British scholars first uncovered, in the 1890s, the Byzantine church and its pool, and parts of a steep street descending the length of the City of David from the Temple Mount to the north, a street which archeologists say led to the section of the pool that has now been excavated.
The excavations at the site, which are led by Eli Shukrun of the Antiquities Authority and Dr. Roni Reich of the University of Haifa, are supported by the ultra-nationalist Elad Organization which espouses the reestablishment of Jewish communities in east Jerusalem, and by the East Jerusalem Development Corporation.
After finding Second Temple remains at the site, Reich said Thursday that archeologists are hoping to find First Temple artifacts as the excavations continue.
While the dig proceeds, the site is closed to the general public.
SOURCE: Jerusalem Post