event · E0460
Pool of Siloam בריכת השילוח
A great stepped public pool at the southern tip of the City of David, at the outlet of Chizkiyahu's tunnel: broad flights of stone steps and landings descending into the water on at least three sides, built of ashlar masonry in the late Second Temple period. Its northeast corner was discovered in 2004, when a sewer-repair crew's digger struck the steps and Ronny Reich and Eli Shukron excavated them; full excavation of the pool was launched in 2023 and is ongoing. It is a different object from the atlas's Siloam Inscription (Siloam Inscription), which is First Temple: the inscription records the digging of the tunnel under Chizkiyahu c. 700 BCE, while this pool is the monumental basin that stood at the tunnel's mouth eight centuries later, at the foot of the Pilgrimage Road (Pilgrimage Road), until the destruction of 70 CE.
I. Who
- Hebrew
- בריכת השילוח
- Also known as
- Breichat HaShiloach, Siloam Pool (Second Temple), Shiloach pool
- Era
- second-temple
II. When
- Traditional
- c. 3711–3830 AM — from its late-Hasmonean construction phase until the churban of 3830
- Civil (computed)
- 3711–3830 AM · 50 BCE – 70 CE
- Academic
- c. 50 BCE – 70 CE (construction and use; an earlier Hasmonean phase underlies the visible pool)
- Date range
- built late Second Temple period (c. 1st century BCE); in use until 70 CE
- Duration
- ≈119 years
- Precision
- approximate
III. Where
- Places
- Jerusalem
IV. What
- Events
- Siloam Inscription, Pilgrimage Road
Why it matters
The Shiloach is the only natural water source of ancient Jerusalem's ritual life, and the Mishnah gives it a starring role: the water for the nisuch hamayim, the Sukkot water libation that filled the Temple courts with the Simchat Beit HaSho'eivah, was drawn from the Shiloach. This pool is what that name looked like in the Temple's last century — a monumental public basin the size of two Olympic pools, its stepped sides built like an enormous mikveh, positioned exactly at the foot of the road up to the Temple Mount. Festival crowds arriving at the city's southern gate met first the water, then the ascent. Found by accident under a sewer line in 2004, it is a case where the city's plumbing — ancient and modern — wrote the archaeology.
V. How do we know
| Claim | Evidence | Confidence | Sources |
|---|---|---|---|
| The pool's northeast corner was discovered in June 2004 during infrastructure work on a sewage line, and excavated by Ronny Reich and Eli Shukron: a stepped pool of the late Second Temple period with three tiers of steps separated by landings, descending into the water on at least three sides. In 2023 the Israel Antiquities Authority and partners announced the full excavation of the pool, which is ongoing. | archaeology | ★★★★★ |
|
| This pool is distinct from the Siloam Inscription (Siloam Inscription) and must not be conflated with it: the inscription is the First Temple record of the digging of Chizkiyahu's tunnel, c. 700 BCE, cut into the tunnel wall itself; the visible stepped pool is a late Second Temple structure at the tunnel's outlet, built roughly eight centuries later on the site the water had served since the tunnel was dug. The name is continuous — the waters of the Shiloach appear in Tanakh from Yeshayahu's gently flowing waters to the pool wall Nechemiah repaired — while the masonry belongs to the Temple's final century. | biblical archaeology | ★★★★★ | |
| The Mishnah sends the Temple to this water: the nisuch hamayim, the Sukkot water libation, was drawn from the Shiloach in a golden flask and carried up to the altar through the Water Gate. With the pool at the foot of the Pilgrimage Road (Pilgrimage Road), the libation's route — from this water, up that street — can now be walked in the excavations.
The Mishnah names the Shiloach as the libation's source; that this excavated basin is the drawing point is the natural but not inscribed identification, and its likely double duty as a purification pool for arriving pilgrims is an interpretation from its mikveh-like stepped design.
|
rabbinic archaeology | ★★★★☆ | |
| Construction phases are dated by coins: coins of Alexander Yannai were found sealed in the plaster of an earlier phase of the pool, and the visible ashlar phase with its use-life runs to the destruction of 70 CE, when the pool went out of use and was buried. The batch source's date range of c. 50 BCE – 70 CE reflects this construction-and-use span. | archaeology | ★★★★☆ |
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Referenced by: Pilgrimage Road