Israel Antiquities Authority
18 February '10
Posted before Shabbat
A beautiful aqueduct, standing 1.50 meters high and built of large stones, has been situated for almost two millennia right under one of the most familiar and traveled places in Jerusalem – beneath the road that leads from Jaffa Gate toward the David Citadel Museum and the shops on David Street.
The High-Level Aqueduct of Jerusalem, which dates from the second-third century CE, was exposed in excavations the Israel Antiquities Authority is conducting, with funding provided by the Jerusalem Development Authority for the purpose of replacing the infrastructure in the region.
According to Dr. Ofer Sion, excavation director on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority, “The side of the aqueduct was discovered during the course of the excavation. When we removed the stones in its side and peeked into it we saw a splendidly built aqueduct covered with stone slabs where one can walk crouched down for a distance of approximately 40 meters. It is very exciting to think that no one has set foot there for many hundreds of years”. According to Sion, “The noted Land of Israel scholar, Dr. Conrad Schick, described a specific section of the aqueduct in a survey he conducted at the end of the nineteenth century. In 1898 a building was erected in this area which afterward became what we know of today as the Imperial Hotel. Schick’s documentation provided us with the clue that led to exposing this section of the aqueduct”.
The aqueduct is c. 60 centimeters wide and 1.5 meters high. Shafts were exposed at fifteen meter intervals or so that allowed the ancients to check the state of the aqueduct from what was the surface level in those days.
Up until the end of the Second Temple period, in the first century BCE, Jerusalem’s water supply was derived from the Gihon Spring; however, as the number of residents steadily increased, the city’s water resources proved insufficient.
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