Professor Ronny Reich in the tunnel. Photo / Reuters
Professor Ronny Reich in the tunnel. Photo / Reuters
KEY POINTS:
JERUSALEM - Israeli archaeologists have stumbled upon the site of one of the great dramatic scenes of the sacking of Jerusalem by the Romans 2000 years ago - a subterranean drainage channel used by Jews to escape from the city's conquerors.
The tunnel was dug beneath what wouldbecome the main road of Jerusalem in the days of the second biblical Temple, which the Romans destroyed in AD70.
The channel was buried beneath rubble during the sacking, and the parts which have been exposed since it was discovered two weeks ago are preserved intact, said Professor Ronny Reich, an archaeologist from the University of Haifa who led the dig.
The walls, made from ashlar stones 1m deep, reach a height of 3m in some places and are covered by heavy stone slabs that were the main road's paving stones.
Portions of the original plasterwork still remain, and pottery fragments and coins from the end of the Second Temple period were also discovered.
The discovery of the drainage channel was momentous in itself, Reich added, and showed that the city's rulers cared for the welfare of their citizens by organising a system to drain the rainfall and prevent flooding.
Israel's Antiquities Authority said contemporary historian Josephus recorded how Jews desperate to flee the destruction of Jerusalem hid in the drain until they could escape through the city's southern gate.
The channel was found by accident two weeks ago, when excavators looking for Jerusalem's main road in the time of the Second Temple happened upon a small drainage channel. That led them to the massive tunnel under the road.
