Inside BAR

By happy coincidence, three articles came together in this issue to provide a rare in-depth look at one of Jerusalem’s most dramatic, but at the same time hidden, features: its ancient underground water systems, which include both Hezekiah’s tunnel and Warren’s Shaft. Gifted photographer Garo Nalbandian waded, undaunted, into neck-high water to take many of the photographs illustrating these Biblically significant structures.

Hezekiah’s tunnel, one of the great engineering achievements of the ancient world, contains several baffling features. Dug to ensure Jerusalem’s water supply during the siege of the Assyrian king Sennacherib in 701 B.C., the 1,748-foot tunnel meanders for no apparent reason, its ceiling rises to a great height in places and the tunnelers who dug it seemingly lacked a source of ventilation. Similarly, the adjacent Warren’s Shaft water system poses puzzles to historians and engineers alike: Why does it contain an adjacent dead-end shaft, a nearly hairpin turn in the access tunnel and a second exit tunnel? With a single stroke, Dan Gill answers all these questions in “How They Met: Geology Solves Long-Standing Mystery of Hezekiah’s Tunnelers.” Gill proposes that both the Warren’s Shaft system and Hezekiah’s tunnel began as part of a natural cave system, which was enlarged and adapted for human use.