Want to walk through a sewer in Jerusalem?

Don’t fear, the sewer is dry! One can now walk underground through the full length of the 2,000 year old Herodian drainage channel that ran below the street from the Siloam Pool to Robinson’s Arch near the Temple Mount. The route of the street is indicated on the drawing below:

The Jerusalem shown in this reconstruction drawing shows the culmination of King Herod the Great's extravagant plan for the city. He found it a city, struggling under the Hasmonean dynasty to regain her original boundaries of the First Temple period - he left it a sophisticated metropolis. © Leen Ritmeyer

Tom Powers has an excellent description using recent photographs and my map of this drainage system that I used in a previous blog post to explain its construction during the Hasmonean period and the Herodian bypass that was made after the construction of the southwest corner of the Herodian Temple Mount cut the earlier drain.

In an earlier post I wrote:

It will be exciting to walk again through this tunnel, but while doing so, one should also remember that in 70 AD many Jerusalemites tried to escape through this same tunnel, but were cruelly killed by the Romans when they were discovered.

3 thoughts on “Want to walk through a sewer in Jerusalem?”

  1. Hi, professor Ritmeyer, im greatly amazed with the articles of your lectures and specially your drawings of ancient Jerusalem and the Temple. Im a Christadelphian who lives in the Philippines. I’m greatly thankful that i have an access to your website.

  2. Was at Ray and Margaret Bilton’s on Sunday and they were showing us photos of their recent Israel trip. They went through these Sewers as well!

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