Buried Cities and Bible Countries

by George St. Clair

In ancient times water was brought into the city by two aqueducts, the “low level” and the “high level,” but the course of the former can alone be traced within the walls of the city. It crosses the valley of Hinnom a little above the Birket es Sultan, and winding round the southern slope of the modern Zion, enters the city near the Jewish almshouses; it then passes along the eastern side of the same hill, and runs over the causeway and Wilson’s Arch to the Sanctuary. The numerous Saracenic fountains in the lower part of the city appear to have been supplied by pipes branching off from the main, but the pipes are now destroyed, and the fountains themselves are used as receptacles for the refuse of the town. This aqueduct derived its supply from the Pools of Solomon (near Bethlehem), from Ain Etan, and a reservoir in Wady Arûb, and still carries water as far as Bethlehem; its total length is over 14 miles, not far short of the length of the aqueduct which Josephus tells us was made by Pontius Pilate.

The Pools of Solomon near the head of Wady Urtas are three in number; they receive the surface drainage of the ground above them and the water of a fine spring known as the Sealed Fountain. The pools have been made by building solid dams of masonry across the valley, and are so arranged that the water from each of the upper ones can be run off into the one immediately below it. The lower pool is constructed in a peculiar manner, which appears to indicate that it was sometimes used as an amphitheatre for naval displays; there are several tiers of seats with steps leading down to them, and the lower portion of the pool, which is much deeper than the upper, could be filled with water by a conduit from one of the other reservoirs.

The “high level aqueduct,” called by the Arabs that of the Unbelievers, is one of the most remarkable works in Palestine. The water was collected in a rock-hewn tunnel 4 miles long, beneath the bed of Wady Byar, a valley on the road to Hebron, and thence carried by an aqueduct above the head of the upper Pool of Solomon, where it tapped the waters of the Sealed Fountain. From this point it wound along the hills above the valley of Urtas to the vicinity of Bethlehem, where it crossed the watershed, and then passed over the valley at Rachel’s Tomb by an inverted stone syphon, which was first brought to notice by Mr Macneill, who made an examination of the water supply for the Syria Improvement Committee. The tubular portion is formed by large perforated blocks of stone set in a mass of rubble masonry; the tube is 15 inches in diameter, and the joints, which appear to have been ground, are put together with an extremely hard cement. The last trace of this aqueduct is seen on the Plain of Rephaim, at which point its elevation is sufficient to deliver water at the Jaffa Gate, and so supply the upper portion of the city; but the point at which it entered has never been discovered, unless it is connected in some way with an aqueduct which was found between the Russian convent and the north-west corner of the city wall.

The present supply of water is almost entirely dependent on the collection of the winter rainfall, which is much less than has generally been supposed, as, by a strange mistake, the rain-gauge was formerly read four times higher than it should have been. According to Dr Chaplin’s observations, the average rainfall during the years 1860–64 was 19·86 inches, the maximum being 22·975 inches, and minimum 15·0 inches.

In addition to Bir Eyûb, which has been described above, the inhabitants draw water from the Fountain of the Virgin and the Hammam esh-Shefa.

[Authorities and Sources:—Smith’s “Dictionary of the Bible.” “Survey Memoirs,” Jerusalem volume. “The Recovery of Jerusalem.” Sir Charles Warren. “Palestine.” Major Conder. “Modern Jerusalem.” C. F. Tyrwhitt Drake. “Walks about Jerusalem.” W. H. Bartlett. “Quarterly Statements of P. E. Fund.”]

2. The Sieges of Jerusalem, and the Fortunes of its Walls.

“In considering the annals of the city of Jerusalem,” says Mr W. Aldis Wright, “nothing strikes one so forcibly as the number and severity of the sieges which it underwent. We catch our earliest glimpse of it in the brief notice of the first chapter of Judges, which describes how ‘the children of Judah smote it with the edge of the sword, and set the city on fire;’ and almost the latest mention of it in the New Testament is contained in the solemn warnings in which Christ foretold how Jerusalem should be compassed with armies, and the abomination of desolation be seen standing in the Holy Place. In the fifteen centuries which elapsed between these two points, the city was besieged no fewer than seventeen times; twice it was razed to the ground, and on two other occasions its walls were levelled. In this respect it stands without a parallel in any city ancient or modern.”

The first siege appears to have taken place soon after the death of Joshua. The men of Judah and Simeon “fought against it and took it, and smote it with the edge of the sword, and set the city on fire” (Judges i. 8). Josephus adds that the siege lasted some time, and that the part of the city captured at last was “the lower,” but that the part above them[21] was so difficult, by reason of its walls and from the nature of the place, that they relinquished their attempt upon it. As long as the strongest part of the city remained in the hands of the Jebusites they practically had possession of the whole. The Benjamites followed the men of Judah to Jerusalem, but they could not drive out the Jebusites (Judges i. 21). A Jebusite city it remained until the days of David.