Image Details
The Gezer Shaft/Tunnel.
| 1. Rock-cut shaft 2. Stepped (or sloping) tunnel 3. Chamber on water table |
4. Southern Gate in Middle Bronze wall 5. Late Bronze wall (initial phase built c. 1400 B.C.) |
Gezer—In the 14th or 9th century B.C. a shaft (1) was sunk 35 feet into the ground. From it a sloping stepped tunnel (2) 48 feet long was carved. The tunnel terminated in a chamber (3) on the water table. The engineers of the Gezer water system probably knew before they began this project that they would find water if they dug deeply enough, suggesting that the people of Gezer may have learned the stepped-tunnel-to-water-table technology from other Mediterranean civilizations or from a similar discovery at another Israelite site such as Gibeon.