SILOE
Pool of Jerusalem (John 9:7); Isaiah speaks of the slow waters of it (Is. 8:6); It was located near the royal garden (Neh. 3:15).
Josephus places it at the end of the Tyropaeon valley, near a bend in the ancient wall, under the hill of Ophel (Wars 5:4, 1-2). This name is preserved in Birket Silouãn, the site of the ancient pool.
It is a rectangular cavity, measuring 17 m. long and 5.5 m. wide, and almost 6 m. deep. The western side of this masonry work is badly worn.
The water gushed into a small cavity, excavated at the top of the rock; It is the arrival of the canal that carries the water from the Fountain of the Virgin (Gihón). At the bottom of the pond, the water comes out through a small canal that carries the waters to irrigate the orchards of the Kidron Valley.
In 1880, a boy entered the conduit that carries the water from Gihon to the pool, discovering on its walls a six-line inscription, in Heb. Very pure; The date of this inscription is supposed to be from the time of Ahaz or Hezekiah.
Since erosion had erased part of the first three lines, it is difficult to determine some characters, but the meaning is evident.
It is a description of the drilling of the tunnel from both ends, and the meeting, at its central point, of the workers, whose beaks collided with each other.
The top of the rock was 100 cubits above the miners’ heads. The characters give evidence that the Jerusalem scribes were already accustomed to writing on papyrus or parchment.
The tower of Siloam, mentioned in Luke. 13:4, it must have been on the ridge of Ophel, near Siloam.