Second Temple Road Uncovered

May 8, 2006

The road was used by tens of thousands of people who came to Jerusalem for the Jewish pilgrimage holidays, immersing themselves in the Shiloah Pool before entering the Temple Mount. Shukrun said the road showed the centrality of both the Temple and the pool for life in the city at the time. Archaeologists had previously discovered the other end of the 600-meter (0.37-mile) road near the Temple Mount.

The archaeologists have not learned when the road was built, but they have determined that it was in use between the first half of the first century BC and the destruction of the second Jewish Temple by the Romans in AD 70. “This was the main road of Jerusalem during the Second Temple period,” Shukrun said.

The archaeologists also found large stones and boulders from the destruction of the Second Temple, burnt ashes, and an assortment of coins from the failed Jewish rebellion against the Romans.

The latest finds in the City of David, located just outside the walls of the Old City, came two years after Israeli archaeologists stumbled upon the 2,000-year-old pool while the city was carrying out infrastructure work for a new sewage line. Other names for the Shiloah Pool are the Pool of Shelah (Neh. 3:15) or the Pool of Siloam (the Greek form of Shiloah), where Jesus healed the blind man (John 9).

Source: Etgar Lefkovits, The Jerusalem Post