Braman's Wanderings

The Pool of Siloam has been in the news this year as they have been undertaking an archaeological excavation to see how much more they can find out about the surroundings.

The Second Temple Pool of Siloam was discovered in 2004 and I visited it on my first trip to Israel in 2013. Since I have several friends who are currently in Israel and have visited the pool I decided to go back and look at some of my pictures.

One of my first views was as we entered the gate from the street and saw a large sewer line running through the site. The pool had been found while constructing this sewer line.

Back behind the area where the steps went up there was a pathway of stone stairs that were found in the 1880’s. These have recently been investigated more fully and they are the beginning of a pathway that leads up to the Temple Mount.

Here is the view back to where we entered the area. We came down the metal stairs from the street. The site has changed a lot in the last ten years and just this year they have started the excavation of the neighboring lot.

I will not share any current pictures of the excavations in progress, but you can find them at multiple places on the internet. They have not found much, but this is mainly because the 2nd Temple Pool of Siloam was destroyed at the end of the First Jewish-Roman Revolt back in 70 AD. The area under the neighboring lot has most likely had something else built there that was later destroyed and removed taking all evidence of the rest of the structure with it.

You can see here that the edge of the pool runs right up to the dirt embankment which was the property line. You can see that the adjoining properly was covered with a large amount of fill. This whole area was covered with a large layer of silt that had been washed down from the areas above.

I have always wondered what was underneath the surface in the adjoining lot and now we are beginning to find out. I believe that they will find some items close to the existing structure, but not the other end of the pool.

It definitely does not look like they will find something like what is in the artistic representation on this sign from ten years ago.  However, I am sure that they will find some interesting items that will help better understand the area.

One of the thoughts that I have is that there were only steps on the end of the pool where the pathway leads up to the Temple Mount. The other end was possibly a dam that was able to control the level of the water in the pool. This would have allowed for more water storage as the deep end could be much deeper than the shallow end where the steps were.

Steven

WWRI