Excavation Report: Pool Of Siloam (Jerusalem) - Essay Example

In the excavations that have taken place since this discovery, three sets of steps have been uncovered, and the pool area. The nature of the site. The site is of geological importance because it represents the lowest point in the whole of Jerusalem, and this means that water gathered there in from the winter rains, at least until the Byzantine period when the area became filled with mud due Roman destruction of the infrastructure in the area and a lack of maintenance on the part of the local people.

The dimensions of the pool are quite significant. It is some 50 yards long and about, in a roughly trapezoid shape with elaborate paving in steps along each side. Three segments of five steps each have been uncovered, showing workmanship of very fine quality. . Historical background and dating of the site. Two stages of construction are visible, consisting of a first stage which has plastered stones, and a second stage which has more elaborate stone facings on the steps. It was possible to date the use of the pool thanks to the discovery of four small coins found near the base of the pool embedded into the plaster of the steps, perhaps deliberately.

These coins were dated to the period from 103 to 76 BC, during the reign of Jewish King Alexander Jannaeus, and this fixes the earliest possible date of construction for the pool. The destruction of the temple in 70AD marks the latest possible ritual use of the pool for temple purposes, and a dozen coins dating from AD 66 to AD 70 were found near the bottom of the pool, confirming that it had begun to be filled by rubble around this date. Relationship with other sites in the area. The new site is connected to other sites by a tunnel known as “Hezekiah’s tunnel.

” The connection with the Old Testament figure of Hezekiah comes from the building of a reservoir in the 8th century BC as a protection for the city of Jerusalem against drought and the possibility of Assyrian siege. The reservoir is no longer in existence, but the name lingers. and there are other locations which bear the same name of Siloam due to multiple buildings in this same water system. About 200 yards from the present excavation site there is a much later “Pool of Siloam” which was constructed between AD 400 and AD 460 by the Byzantine Empress Eudocia .

This is not part of the original Old Testament or New Testament site. Previous excavations of the site. In the 19th century Bliss and Dickie uncovered part of the pavement to the North of the pool, and again in the 1960s Kathleen