Footnotes

1.

Note that all that had to be done was to “touch” the tsinnor, not, as often translated, to “get up” the tsinnor. Z. Abels and A. Arlit have plausibly suggested that, this being so, Joab, David’s soon-to-be general, didn’t have to come into the city through the water system. He only had to “harm” the system and divert the water out in order to force the inhabitants to surrender.

2.

Ronny Reich and Eli Shukron, “Light at the End of the Tunnel,” BAR 25:01.

3.

Captain Montague B. Parker hoped to find a tunnel leading underground to the treasures of Solomon’s Temple, supposedly buried in a cave beneath the Temple Mount. The mission ended when Jerusalem’s Muslims rioted upon learning of this foolish scheme and finding Parker excavating beneath the Dome of the Rock. See Neil Asher Silberman, “In Search of Solomon’s Lost Treasures,” BAR 06:04.

4.

Ronny Reich and Eli Shukron, “Light at the End of the Tunnel.” BAR 25:01.

5.

See Hershel Shanks, “I Climbed Warren’s Shaft (But Joab Never Did),” BAR 25:06.

7.

Qualification: If this system had been in continuous use the whole time. If not, perhaps they wanted to open a new system. The precise scenario is irrelevant.

8.

However, Vincent did notice some polishing around the neck of the shaft.

Endnotes

1.

40 feet is the height of the shaft from the point where one stands today downward.

2.

Wilson and Warren, The Recovery of Jerusalem: A Narrative of Exploration and Discovery in the City and the Holy Land (London: Bentley, 1871); Yigal Shiloh, “The City of David I,” Qedem 19 (1985), pp. 21, 24. Warren even reported the discovery of an iron ring that was situated above the shaft in order to facilitate the lifting of buckets (The Recovery of Jerusalem, pp. 238 and 247–248). Vincent, however, reported that it had disappeared. See L.-H. Vincent, Underground Jerusalem: Discoveries on the Hill of the Ophel (1909–1911) (London: H. Cox, 1911), pp. 15–16.

3.

Vincent, Underground Jerusalem, p. 16. See also Z. Abels and A. Arbit, “The City of David: Controversy Concerning a Protected Access to Water in the Middle Bronze II (MB2) Period,” in A. Faust and E. Baruch, eds., New Studies on Jerusalem, Proceedings of the 5th Conference (Ramat-Gan, 1999), p. 8.

4.

Vincent, Underground Jerusalem, p. 16.

5.

Vincent, Underground Jerusalem, p. 16. It should be noted that at some point they put a plank halfway down the shaft, where one of the workers guided the bucket through the narrow part.

6.

Several walls were discovered by Vincent (see, for example, Plates I and II in Underground Jerusalem). Their use to increase the level of water was apparently identified by M. Hecker, “Water Supply of Jerusalem in Ancient Times,” in M. Avi-Yonah, ed., Sepher Yerushalayim, Jerusalem, its natural conditions, history and development from the origins to the present day (Jerusalem, 1956), pp. 191–218 [in Hebrew]. The importance of this issue has been stressed in recent years by Abels and Arbit (see, for example, their publication cited above).

7.

See M. Hecker, “Water Supply of Jerusalem in Ancient Times,” p. 194; see also Z. Abels and A. Arbit, “Some New Thoughts on Jerusalem’s Ancient Water System,” Palestine Exploration Quarterly 127 (1995), p. 4; and Z. Abels and A. Arbit, The City of David Water Systems, Supplement to Jerusalem’s Water Supply from the 18th Century B.C.E. to the Present (Jerusalem, 1994), p. 13.

8.

There is no need to discuss the details of their complex reconstruction, as it does not impact the main arguments of this discussion.

9.

See already Vincent, Underground Jerusalem, p. 14; see also Abels and Arbit’s articles cited above.

10.

Their remodeling effort—that is, lowering the floor—stopped at Warren’s Shaft. When they discovered the shaft, they changed their original plan, whatever that was. Once the shaft was discovered, the excavators realized that they could use it to draw water. The planners, therefore, stopped working on the original plan, and developed an alternative one that incorporated the shaft. The sudden cessation of all work precisely following the discovery of the shaft seems to indicate that this discovery was the reason for stopping.

Reich and Shukron do not have a good explanation for why the enlarging work suddenly stopped at Warren’s Shaft. They have suggested that the work was abandoned because the excavation of Hezekiah’s Tunnel made it unnecessary. Though it is not impossible that the shaft was discovered just as the engineers decided to abandon all work on Hezekiah’s Tunnel, this suggestion is very problematic. The creation of Hezekiah’s Tunnel was a very difficult enterprise, with no warranty of success. It is extremely unlikely that the engineers would neither use the shaft nor continue their original operation, at least in tandem with the work on Hezekiah’s Tunnel, until the latter was successfully completed. The suggestion that the chance discovery of the shaft occurred exactly when the tunnel was finished seems too fantastic, and extremely unlikely, especially when we recall that a tunnel was dug to connect the bottom of the shaft with the spring. See Reich and Shukron, “Light at the End of the Tunnel,” BAR 25:01, and Reich and Shukron, “The System of Rock-Cut Tunnels Near Gihon in Jerusalem Reconsidered,” Revue Biblique 107 (2000).

11.

It is irrelevant whether they dug only Channel VI, or some other tunnel or combination of tunnels, in order to bring the water to the bottom of the shaft.