The term Pool of Siloam (Hebrew: בְּרֵכַת הַשִּׁילוֹחַ, romanized: Bərēḵaṯ hašŠilōaḥ, Levantine Arabic: بِرْكَة سِلْوَان, romanized: Birkat Silwān) refers to several rock-cut pools located southeast of the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem. The pools were fed by the waters of the Gihon Spring, carried there by the Siloam tunnel. The Lower Pool or "Old Pool" (הַבְּרֵכָ֣ה הַיְשָׁנָ֑ה, according to Isaiah 22:11) was historically known in Palestinian Arabic as Birket el-ḥamra "the Red Pool."
History
During the Second Temple period, the Pool of Siloam was centrally located in the Jerusalem suburb of Acra (Hebrew: חקרא), also known as the Lower City. Today, the Pool of Siloam is the lowest place in altitude within the historical city of Jerusalem, with an elevation of about 625 metres (2,051 ft) above sea level. The ascent from it unto the Temple Mount meant a gradient of 115 metres (377 ft) in altitude at a linear distance of about 634 metres (2,080 ft), with a mean elevation in the Temple Mount of 740 metres (2,430 ft) above sea level. According to the Jerusalem Talmud, Hagigah, the Pool of Siloam was the starting point for pilgrims who made the annual pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and where they ascended by foot to the inner court of the Temple Mount to bring an offertory to the Temple Court. The Pool of Siloam (perhaps referring to the Lower Pool) was used by pilgrims for ritual purification before visiting the Temple enclosure.
Hezekiah The Pool of Siloam was built during the reign of Hezekiah (715–687/6 BCE) to leave besieging armies without access to the spring's waters. The newly constructed Siloam tunnel fed the pool. An older Canaanite tunnel had been vulnerable to attackers, so, under threat from the Assyrian king Sennacherib, Hezekiah sealed the old outlet of the Gihon Spring and built the new underground Siloam tunnel in place of the older tunnel (Books of Chronicles, 2 Chronicles 32:2–4). During this period the Pool of Siloam was sometimes known as the Lower Pool according to Isaiah 22:9, as opposed to the more ancient Upper Pool mentioned in 2 Kings 18:17 and Isaiah 7:3 formerly fed by the older Canaanite tunnel.
Second Temple period
The pool was reconstructed no earlier than the reign of Alexander Jannaeus (103–76 BCE), although it is not clear whether this pool was in the same location as the earlier pool built by Hezekiah – if so, all traces of the earlier construction have been destroyed. The pool remained in use during the time of Jesus. According to the John 9, Jesus sent a man blind from birth to the pool to complete his healing. As a freshwater reservoir, the pool would have been a major gathering place for ancient Jews making religious pilgrimages to the city. Some scholars, influenced by Jesus commanding the blind man to wash in the pool, suggest that it was probably used as a mikvah (ritual bath). The pool was destroyed and covered after the First Jewish–Roman War in 70 CE. Dating was indicated by several coins discovered on the stones of the patio near the pool to the north from the days of the War. The latest coin is dated "4 years to the day of the Great Revolt, " meaning 69 CE. In the years following the destruction, winter rains washed alluvia from the hills to the valley and down the slopes of Mount Zion to the west of the pool; the pool was filled with silt layers (up to 4m in some places) until it was covered completely.
Late Roman and Byzantine periods
Roman sources mention a Shrine of the Four Nymphs (Tetranymphon), a nymphaeum built by Hadrian during the construction of Aelia Capitolina in the year 135 and mentioned in Byzantine works such as the 7th-century Chronicon Paschale; other nymphaea built by Hadrian, such as that at Sagalassos, are very similar. It is unlikely that this shrine was built on the site of the Second Temple Pool of Siloam, but it may have been a precursor to the Byzantine reconstruction. In the 5th century, a pool was constructed at the end of the Siloam tunnel at the behest of Aelia Eudocia, empress consort of the Byzantine Empire. This pool survives today, surrounded by a high stone wall with an arched entrance to Hezekiah's Tunnel. The pool is around 70 yards (64 m) from the Second Temple period Lower Pool and is significantly smaller. Until the discovery of the Second Temple pool, this pool was wrongly thought to be the one described in the New Testament and Second Temple sources.
Archaeological research
19th and 20th centuries Archaeologists excavating the site around the Pool of Siloam in the 1880s noted that there was a stairway of 34 rock-hewn steps to the west of the Pool of Siloam leading up from a court in front of the Pool of Siloam. The breadth of the steps varies from 27 ft (8.2 m) at the top to 22 ft (6.7 m) at the bottom. The remnants of an ancient wall dating to the Bronze Age were unearthed near the older Pool of Siloam, known also as the "Lower Pool," and in Arabic as Birket al-Ḥamrah, during the excavations conducted by F. J. Bliss and A. C. Dickie (1894–1897). At the "Lower Pool" of Siloam there was a weir (levee), used to raise the level of water upstream or to regulate its flow. Conrad Schick's research in connection with a partially rock-hewn aqueduct related to the water system of Siloam has led researchers to conclude that the Lower Pool, Birket al-Ḥamrah, received water directly from the "Fountain of the Virgin" (Gihon Spring) at some period and which Schick places prior to the completion of the Siloam Tunnel.
21st century
Second Temple period pool
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