Yitzhak Harari

Stone gables form the entry tunnel’s distinctive roof, seen here after complete clearing of debris. Structurally integrated into the barrel-vault construction of the adjacent chamber, this tunnel is now understood to have been a protected upper entrance which was added to the Warren’s Shaft system in about the first century B.C. Prior to the excavations of 1980, this tunnel was thought by some to be a 20th-century addition by the explorer Montague Parker. Together the barrel vault and the entry tunnel provide evidence for the use of Warren’s Shaft at a much later period than previously supposed. The author concludes, again contrary to previously accepted opinions, that the water system represented by Warren’s Shaft was not replaced by Hezekiah’s Tunnel, but, rather, was used simultaneously with it to serve a different purpose.