Today we came into Jerusalem for the weekend. A nice time to rest up from the dig at Lachish and also see more of the history of Jerusalem.

During my last trip to Israel I did not get the chance to walk through Hezekiah’s Tunnel. See: In the BAR

On this trip, a walk through the tunnel was on the agenda.

Here I am getting ready to walk through the tunnel. You can see that I have on my water shoes that I packed for the trip. See: Dig Packing

During my last trip to Israel I walked through the Canaanite Tunnel, which is the dry route. See: Over, Under and Around Jerusalem

Here you can see that the water is pretty deep. Luckily we didn’t have to wade through this much water for the entire length of the tunnel. The tunnel is about 533 meters long, so think about walking around a track almost one and a half times.

The tunnel runs from the Gihon Spring to the Pool of Siloam.

The floor of the tunnel was fairly smooth. This was nice especially as it was very dark in the tunnel. We had to carry flashlights with us to see the way. I could not even imagine going through the tunnel without a flashlight.

The tunnel was very narrow and there were some places where I had to turn a bit sideways to get through. There were also places where I had to stoop down as the ceiling was a bit low.

At this spot it looks like they decided to switch directions during the digging of the tunnel. There are also several tight corners where it looks like direction was changed.

It was difficult to get this picture as I could not see the display on my camera very well. I had to hold it against the opposite side of the tunnel. The sign here says: You are standing at the place where the Shiloah Inscription, written approximately 2700 years ago during the reign of King Kezekiah was discovered.

Here is a copy of the inscription that is in place on the wall. The original inscription is at the Instanbul Archaeology Museum in Instanbul. Unfortunately when I was there the hall where the inscription is displayed was closed. See: Historic Istanbul

The inscription is very close to the Pool of Siloam end of the tunnel.

One last picture to show you how wet I got during the trip through the tunnel. The walls of the tunnel were wet, so my upper body also got a bit wet.

Now for some much needed sleep. I am up past my dig bedtime, but do get to sleep in tomorrow morning. No 4:00am wake-up call tomorrow.

Steven