This 500m-long underground passage of waist-deep water ends at the Pool of Siloam, where it is said that a blind man was healed after Jesus told him to wash in it. The purpose of the tunnel was to channel water flowing from the Gihon Spring, a temperamental source that acts like a siphon, pouring out a large quantity of water for some 30 minutes before drying up for several hours.
Gihon means ‘gushing’, and the spring is the main reason the Canonites settled in the valley rather than taking to the adjacent high ground. There is believed to be enough water to support a population of about 2500 people. The tunnel was constructed around 700 BCE by King Hezekiah to bring the water of the Gihon into the city and store it in the Pool of Siloam, so preventing invaders, in particular the Assyrians, from locating the city’s water supply and cutting it off (an account of this is in II Chronicles 32:3).
Although the tunnel is narrow and low in parts, you can wade through it; the water is normally between 0.5m and 1m deep. The tunnel is as little as 60cm wide at some points.
About 20m into the tunnel, the cavern turns sharply to the left, where a chest-high wall blocks another channel that leads to Warren’s Shaft. Towards the tunnel’s end the roof rises. This is because the tunnellers worked from either end and one team slightly misjudged the other’s level. They had to lower the floor so that the water would flow. A Hebrew inscription was found in the tunnel (a copy can be seen in the Israel Museum): carved by Hezekiah’s engineers, it tells of the tunnel’s construction.
The walk through Hezekiah’s Tunnel takes about 20 minutes. If you don’t want to get wet there is a second tunnel without water, which takes about 15 minutes to walk through. To find the entrance to the dry tunnel, go left just before the opening to Hezekiah’s Tunnel. Children must be at least five years of age to walk through Hezekiah’s Tunnel.
