Today we are going to the City of David, which is in the valley as well as exploring the water system and the spring that feeds the city and is the reason it was originally built in this location. Our descent will take us to the Pool of Ceylon, afterwards we will return through the dung gate and be visiting the wailing wall for the second time continuing to the Jewish quarter and Christian quarter followed by a visit to the Bazaar.
Before we explore the City of David we were invited to a theater to watch a 3D movie of the history of the city and the surrounding area. I discovered that the trail we are taking is called Ophel and lies between the Temple Mount and the City of David. The city of David was built after the conquering of the Jebusite city. We also learned that King David dies around 1000BC at which time his son, Solomon began to expand the city and built the first temple upon the Rock Mount Moriah. King Hezekiah later built a channel to bring water from the Gihon spring to the pool inside the city walls, which was of course names, the Pool of Ceylon.
Other notes to point out is the in 586BC Nebuchadnezzar destroyed the city and temple until Nehemiah rebuilt it. Afterwards King Herod ruled and after him the Romans came and eventually destroyed the city again.
As we walked down to the pool we could see a stepped wall, which is thought to have supported King David’s original palace. I would like to point out that in many rebuilt cities, there are many levels of civilizations which can be found mixed together due to the use of the former remains of the city before it. The lower portion of this wall we are told is part of the one Nehemiah rebuilt. In 1978, 50 pieces of pottery were found in a lower room along with seals that indicated letters of importance were being preserved and store at this location. The remains of the seals indicated that they were of owned by one of the temple priests and is assumed that they held religious writings.
Our guide Aaron explained that when the excavation of the spring began it was found to be fortified by walls and an access tunnel was found in 1880, which traverses 533 meters. On further inspection of that tunnel writing was found by the original workers who dug the tunnel, which explained that two teams actually dug from either end, and met in the middle. It is amazing to see that the offset between the two teams digging in opposite directions was only 1 foot. The whole project is estimated to have taken 1 full year build and it still functions today with the use of natural gravity to collect water. Aaron also mentioned that the pool is also called Shiloah in Hebrew and this is the site where Jesus healed the blind man; today the water, which is collected, is used for irrigation of crops.
From this site we continued on to the Southwest temple mount corner walking on Herodian street stones. I have to stop here and mention that I now know why the Romans left the walls of the temple mount standing, they are massive and measure about 5 feet deep, 4 feet high and 20 feet long. From here we can also see one of the fallen arches leading into the temple mount and the writing on it in Hebrew “Trumpeting of Announcement”. We finally settled down on the steps of the temple mount in order to do our daily devotion. Before we got started, Aaron set the tone by advising us that the stone we sat upon are the same ones that Jesus saw and walked on when he first came to the temple as a boy and also the site of King David’s repentance and the threshing floor where the temple was later built.
After devotion we had lunch in the Jerusalem Square of local cuisine followed by a visit to the Broad wall built by King Hezekiah in the first temple period around 100-586BC, before proceeding to the Jewish and Christian quarters where we had some free time for shopping and exploring before retiring back to the hotel.
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