The pool of Siloam, where the Gospels say Jesus healed a man born blind, is to open to the public.
Visitors to Jerusalem will soon be able to watch the final phase of excavations on the entire 2,700-year-old pool, say Israeli authorities.
According to chapter nine of John's gospel , Jesus instructs a man “blind from birth” to “go, wash in the pool of Siloam.” Earlier, he tells his disciples the man was not born blind – as they have assumed – because of sin.
Spitting on the ground, Jesus makes mud with the saliva, spreading the mix on the man’s eyes. After going to the pool – Siloam means “sent” – the man is able to see.
Originally part of Jerusalem’s water system, the pool was built by King Hezekiah, eight centuries before Christ.
Chapter 20 of the Book of Kings says “...the rest of the acts of Hezekiah...and how he made the Pool, and the conduit, and brought water into the city, are they not written in the Book of Chronicles of the kings of Judah?”
Rendering of the Pool of Siloam, Second Temple period. Credit: Shalom Kveller, City of David Archives.
In 1880, an inscription found in a tunnel dozens of metres from the pool confirmed the Bible account. The words, in ancient Hebrew, record the waters of the Gihon Spring being diverted to the pool during the reign of King Hezekiah.
A portion of the pool’s steps were dug up by a team of British and American archaeologists led by Frederick Bliss Jones and Archibald Campbell Dickey in the 1890s. In the 1960s, the British archaeologist Kathleen Kenyon excavated the site.
In 2004, infrastructure works by the Israel water company Hagihon exposed some of the steps, prompting excavations of the whole site.
Thought to have occupied an area of one and a quarter acres, the original pool was inlaid with striking flagstones.
Now visitors will be able to watch the final phase of the excavations. According to the the Israel Antiquities Authority, Israel National Parks Authority and the City of David Foundation, the pool will soon be part of a tourist route from the southernmost tip of Jerusalem to the Western Wall.
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