Page:Jewish Encyclopedia Volume 2.pdf/65

33 THE JEWISH ENCYCLOPEDIA

33

Aqueducts in Palestine

of the mountains eastward into the Jordan plain, with branches which appear clearly to have been intended

height is very irregular, being about 16 feet at its southern exit, but only 3f feet at several points in

This answers to the system menby Josephus ("Ant." xvii. 13, § 1), near the village of Neara (the ancient Naarath, Josh. xvi. 7), which was constructed by Archelaus to water his

its interior.

palm-groves, for Eusebius (in the " Onomasticon") places Neara Ave Roman miles north of Jericho. Csesarea, the capital of Palestine under Herod the Great, was built on the seashore north of Joppa, on It is, therea site which had no good water-supply. fore, probable that aqueducts were Remains in built when the city was first founded. Csesarea of The two that are still traceable have a length of about four miles to the north, Two Aqueducts, and conduct water from the spring of Mamas (an ancient " Maiuma, " or place They are on of water), near the Crocodile river.

gun at the foot of these steps, and another tunnel was driven northward to meet it from Siloam. The excavators appear to have worked without instru-

for irrigation.

tioned

different levels,

Roman work,

and run on arches, which appear across the

swamps near

to

the river. The low -level aqueduct is tunneled through the low sandy cliffs further south, and rock-cut well-stairThese cases lead down to the channel at intervals. aqueducts may have been repaired or rebuilt in the later Roman age, but the original rock channel is probably as old as the time of Herod. At Jerusalem there were several aqueducts in the time of Herod, but perhaps the oldest was that to the west of the city. The "conduit of the upper pool, in the highway of the fuller's field " (II Kings xviii. 17) was the place where the Ass}r rians appeared before Jerusalem; and the camp of the Assyrians, according to Josephus (" B. J. " v. 7, § 2), was to the northwest of Jerusalem, from which direction they would naturally approach, coming, as The Aque- they did, from the plains. An aqueducts of duct led later to the tower Hippicus Jerusalem, on the west (Josephus, ibid.), and still leads from the Birket Mamilla, outside the city on this side, to the great interior rock-cut pool now known as " Hanimstm el Batrak " (The Patriarch's Pool), which answers to the Amygdalon pool of Josephus (" B. J. " v. 7, § 2 xi. 4) or " Pool of the Tower " (Ha-Migdalon). As Jerusalem was naturally deficient in water-supply, it is probable that this large reservoir dated from the earliest times, and was fed through the aqueduct that collected the rain-water from the rocky ground west of the town. The pool of Gihon (I Kings i. 33, 38) rose in a cavern, partly natural, but enlarged artificially, on the west side of the Kidron, south of the Temple. The stream thence appears to have flowed at first down the Kidron valley and the periodical overflow (due to a natural siphon in the rock) was a remarkable feature of this supply. Hezekiah is believed to have dammed up the waters, and to have cut the famous Siloam aqueduct through the Ophel hill, southward to the new pool of Siloam (II Chron. xxxii. 30). This channel, which is nearly a third of a mile (1,757 feet) in length, although the air-line between the points of beginning and ending is only 1,104 feet, gives clear evidence of the Hebrew engineering methods of Hezekiah's age; and the ancient rock inscription (see Siloam Inscription), on the east wall of the tunnel near its mouth, gives us an account of the method of excavation. Its

be





II.—

The upper cave pool had,

at its farthest recess, a

up within the city near 26). The tunnel was be-

staircase cut in rock leading

the

"

water-gate

"

(Neh.

iii.

ments capable of keeping the

direction straight, or perhaps they followed some softer vein of the rock. They' are said, in the text, to have heard the

The

Siloam TunnelAqueduct, sound and

to

of the picks of their fellows,

have worked toward each other

until they met, not exactly in a line. The point of junction is still marked by a sharp turn at right angles in the tunnel, the two channels having been about a yard apart center to center of excavation. The tunnel is much more lofty at its mouth than elsewhere, and is very narrow in the middle, where it is now much silted up, and nearly impassable for a full-grown man. It was probably found that the lower end of the tunnel, when cut through, was not low enough to allow the water to flow into the pool and the height of the excavation was due probably to subsequent lowering of the floor at this point. There is only one shaft leading from the surface of the hill, and in another part a sort of standing-place is formed by a recess in the roof but throughout the greater part of the work the excavators must have labored on their knees, or even while lying flat. The whole of the work suggests very primitive methods, and it was probably carried out in a hurry on account of the threatened Assyrian invasion. The Siloam pool was outside the walls (Josephus, " Ant. " vii. 14, § 5 " B. J. " v. 9, § 4), but lay in a reentering angle, well within bow-shot. The water-supply was thus controlled by the garrison instead of running to waste Similar cave springs, with rock stairs in the valley. to the interior of the fortress, are found at Gibeon and elsewhere in Palestine, but the Siloam tunnel is the most important instance known of Hebrew engineering. Another short aqueduct, with a system of converging channels, gathered the rain-water north of the city, and brought it to the ditch of Antonia, and, through a lofty rock-cut passage, to On the Other the interior of the Temple. Aqueducts south were two other aqueducts, which Solomon's appear to have been made by Pontins Pilate, the procurator (Josephus, Pools.

—







"Ant." xviii. 3, § 2). One of them led from Etam ('Ain 'Atan), and from the three Roman reservoirs called "Solomon's Pools" (see Yoma 31«; Josephus, " Ant. " viii. 7, § 3), to the city, probably The second channel ran entering near Hippicus. from these reservoirs along the south slopes to the Temple. The direct distance was about seven EngThe water was conveyed in stone pipes lish miles. laid in cement in parts where the channel is not rockThe reservoirs were supplied from springs thircut. teen miles south of the city by another aqueduct; and the windings along the hillsides give a total length of forty -one miles from the head spring, 'Ain Kuei-Ziba.