Constructed for Jerusalem, though seven miles from the city, are the three great reservoirs known as 'Solomon's Pools,' or el-Bur uk. They lie one below the other down a valley ; their floors are made of the valley bed, deepened in places, and they are naturally deepest at their lower or eastern ends ; they increase in size from above downward. The largest and lowest is nearly 200 yards long, 60 yards wide, and 50 feet deep. To-day they are use- less, but when kept in repair and clean were no doubt valuable as storeplaces of surplus supplies of surface water from the surroun<ling hills and of water from the springs. Eeganling the question when these pools were made there are most con- trary opinions. It is highly iniprobable that they go back anything like as far as Solomon's time, and
JERUSALEM
JERUSALEM
853
the association of liis name with any great and wise work is so common in the East that the name 'Solomon's Pools' means nothing. On the whole, it is likely the work was not later than Koman times.
The system of aqueducts which centre round these pools has a special interest. Two were con- structed to carry water from tlie four springs in the Valley of the tools to Jerusalem, and two others
WATER SUPPLY
The " Low Level " Aqueduct thun
Tho "High Level -Aqueduct _.
TheWady Blur "Kliariz" ,. o-o— iHerodlum
(ModiJUifrom Schick
to supplement this supply. The first two are the well-known high- and low-level aqueducts. The former appears to have reached the city somewhere about the level of the Jaffa Gate, and may also have supplied the Birkct Mamilla. It is specially remarkable for the way it crossed a valley on the Bethlehem road ))y iiipans of an inverted syphon.
Large fi lij iil^ (it llii-^ ■jrc:i( stone tube have been
found, aihl Imni in-n i|.i i,,iis carved on the lime- stone lilu.k,, ilir ,lal.' I.I II-, construction or repair must have l.ecu in Koman limes and, according to some authorities, as latca^ al.out A.li. I'.i.'i. rnless, liowever, the account ,ui\(ii of I he royal jialace gardens of Herod is greatly e\a--' lalr,!, the aque- duct nnist have been in use in ller,„l s .lay^, as it is the only conduit by which nuniiiiii «a'ler could have reached tlie city at a level hijh en.mjh to have supplied these garilens. ^ Tlie low -level aciue-
duct, still in use along a good part of its course, may easily be followed to-day along its whole length of 11 J miles. It brought water from the springs into the Temple area. It is very probably the source of the ' spring ' which is said by Tacitus ( Hist. V. 12) to have run perpetually in the Temple. Of the two supplementary aqueducts, one, of exactly the same construction as the last mentioned, brought water from the copious springs at Wady Arriib — two-thirds of the way from Jerusalem to Hebron— along an extraordinarily winding conduit 28 miles long. The other, built on an altogether difl'erent principle, is a four-mile channel which gathers water from a long chain of wells in the Wadi/ BiAr on the plan of a Persian khariz,^ such as is extensively used in Northern Syria. This, pronounced by Sir C. Wilson ' one of the most remarkable works in Palestine,' is probably comparatively late. It seems to have been used to supplement the water of the springs in the Valley of the Pools.
The special interest of the great ' low-level aque- duct ' described above, with its total length of 40 miles, lies in the historical fact that it, or some part of it, was one of the causes of the recall of Pontius Pilate. ' Pilate (Ant. XVIII. iii. 2) under- took to bring a current of water to Jerusalem, and did it with the sacred money, and derived the origin of the stream from the distance of two hundred furlongs.' A riot took place, and a ' great number ' of people were slain. This may be the incident referred to in Lk 13"-. If Josephus is correct in saying that Pilate was bringing water a distance of
200 stadia ( = 26 miles), then this must apply to the aqueduct to Wady Arrub. In any case, it is highly improbable that his was the
initiation of the whole work. The very absence of inscriptions and of contemporary references makes it probable that the conduit was at least older than Roman times. If we allow that the high-level aqueduct goes back to the days of Herod the Great, then the low-level aqueduct may well go back some centuries earlier.
S. Topography of the City in the timk of Christ.— The city walls.— At the time of Christ, Jerusalem had two walls which had been restored by order of Julius Cajsar (Ant. XIV. x. 5). In A.D. 43, Agrippa I. commenced a third one of great magnifi- cence, which, however, seems never to have been properly finished.
(a) The first wall had 60 towers ; it encompassed the ancient and most important secular buildings of the city. Though some minor details are yet unknown, its general course is perfectly clear. The tower Hippicus, at which it arose — one of those magnificent towers built by Herod— was situated close to the present so-called ' Tower of David,' in which indeeditsremains may even be incorporated. From here it ran along the'S. edge of the VV. arm of the Tyropoeon Valley. It then passed the Xystus, joined on to the Council House near the jjresent Mehkemeh or Town Hall, and ended at the W estern Cloister. It probably crossed the Tyropoeon Valley, where to-day there is the causeway leading to the Bab es-Silsileh of the liaram. The western wall commenced at the tower Hippicus, and probably followed the line of the present western wall to the great corner tower, the rocky foundations of which are now included in the C.M.S. Boys' School. Somewhere near this part of its course it passed ' a place called Bethso '—unidentified ; it then bent S.E. ' to the gate of the Essenes, and went thence southward along tlu^ steeii edge of the Valley of Hinnoin down to the I'ocd of Siloam.' It had 'its bending aliove the fountain Siloam,' which prob- ably implies that it surrounded the pool on the W., N., and E., but did not enclose it, as a wall at another period undoubtedly did. It then ran on the edge of the steep rocks above the Virgin's