JERUSALEM, Israel, September 19, 2003 — New scientific evidence supports the Bible's historical record.
For years historians have contended that an underground aqueduct in Jerusalem, the Siloam Tunnel, is the very structure built by the Hebrew King Hezekiah and described in the Bible. Now, modern science has proven them right.
| 2 Chronicles 32:2-4,30a (CEV): |
| As soon as Hezekiah learned that Sennacherib was planning to attack Jerusalem, he and his officials worked out a plan to cut off the supply of water outside the city, so that the Assyrians would have no water when they came to attack. The officials got together a large work force that stopped up the springs and streams near Jerusalem… It was Hezekiah who built a tunnel that carried the water from Gihon Spring into the city of Jerusalem." |
The Old Testament texts, 2 Kings 20:20 and 2 Chronicles 32:2-4 and 32:30, recount how Hezekiah (727-698 BC), threatened with a siege by the Assyrian king, Sennacherib, had the tunnel built to deny his attackers water while ensuring sufficient supplies for his own subjects.
The meandering tunnel runs 533 metres beneath the ancient section of Jerusalem known as the City of David, diverting water from Gihon Spring in the Kidron Valley, to Siloam Pool in Jerusalem's ancient heart. While this is consistent with the Biblical account, no other evidence had ever been found to link the tunnel directly to Hezekiah.
Now, however, thanks to forensic evidence and the latest tools in chemical analysis, researchers say they can demonstrate conclusively that the Siloam Tunnel is Hezekiah's Tunnel.
In research detailed in the September 11 issue of the British scientific journal Nature, Amos Frumkin of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, along with Aryeh Shimron of the Geological Survey of Israel, and Jeff Rosenbaum, a postgraduate researcher at Reading University in southern England, used radiocarbon and other radioactive isotope testing to establish the age of the tunnel.
Weighing the Evidence
Frumkin and his team took samples of ancient lime plaster that the tunnel's builders used to line the aqueduct to prevent water from draining back into the earth. The plaster contained organic materials, including bone, charcoal, ash, and wood and plant fragments, substances whose carbon content allows researchers to determine their age using radiographic analysis.
Radiocarbon-dating of the wood sample establishes its origins at between 822-796 BC, and two plant samples are dated at 790-760 BC and 690-540 BC respectively. Combined, these converge on an approximate construction date of 700 BC, a date that coincides with a radioisotope estimate of an ancient stalactite found in the tunnel's ceiling.
"Our dating agrees well... with the date commonly assigned to King Hezekiah," the authors say.
"The three independent lines of evidence -- radiometric dating, palaeography and the historical record -- all converge on about 700 BC, rendering the Siloam Tunnel the best-dated Iron-Age biblical structure so far."
"It's very rare to find things which are mentioned in the Bible that have been confirmed independently by dating," Frumpkin says, noting that such structures are usually difficult to identify and poorly preserved. In fact, this may be the first time that a well-identified biblical structure had been subjected to extensive radiocarbon dating.
"It's nice to have scientific confirmation for what the vast majority of biblical scholars and archaeologists believe," says Hershel Shanks, an expert on the history of Jerusalem and writer for the Biblical Archaeology Review.
Hezekiah's Wonder
Now a tourist attraction, the tunnel is a remarkable achievement of engineering, dug with primitive hand tools by two teams working from opposite ends, without any intermediate shaft to provide ventilation or light to the diggers.
The tunnel still bears pick marks from the iron chisels that cut through the soft limestone. The two teams of workers occasionally had to adjust their courses so as to meet up and complete the project. As a result, the 60 cm wide aqueduct snakes through the ancient city, dropping as much as 30 metres below ground.
A carved inscription, found in 1880 and now housed in the Museum of Istanbul, describes the moment when the two groups of diggers finally met up:
"There was heard a man's voice calling to his fellow... the hewers hacked each toward the other, axe against axe -- and the water flowed from the spring to the pool."
Water still flows through the tunnel even today, though it is no longer part of the municipal water system.
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