Aqueducts
Guides can be a bit vague about how the bits of aqueduct in and around Jerusalem are connected to each, though I'll bet there's a book or at least an article diagramming that.
I'm pretty sure there was only one aqueduct leading into the city, the one from the high hills a little south of Bethlehem. Romans had the first parts of this built to supplement the water supplied by local springs. I started to say, "The Romans built," but I highly doubt any Romans did the labor of building. Roman engineers did do the equally important design work. Guided tours sometimes get permission to take tourists through the tunnel (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/10/haas-and-goldman-promenades.html )that brought the water through the last hill before crossing the last valley.
Near Yemin Moshe (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/06/montefiores-windmill.html ) you can see another bit of the water system from the Roman period. To the left of the path from Yemin Moshe to the Cable Car Museum (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/05/jerusalem-cable-car.html ) runs a rectangular-cross-section stone channel on a level with the path and in places slightly lower. Some of the thin slabs that topped the aqueduct are gone. I'm surprised they weren't all taken for building material long ago. But there's so much re-useable building stone around.
One guide, who spent much of her childhood in Australia, said, "In Australia they'd build national park around a find like this." Well, if they found a 2000-year-old Roman aqueduct in Australia, I should think they'd pay a lot of attention to it ;=)
The Talpiyot water tunnel was used through much of the period between Roman control and British control. I don't know about this channel, but it doesn't look as if it had to be excavated. A lot of archaeology in Israel is done by noticing what's clearly visible and figuring out what it is and when it was built.
Copyright 2011 Jane S. Fox
I'm pretty sure there was only one aqueduct leading into the city, the one from the high hills a little south of Bethlehem. Romans had the first parts of this built to supplement the water supplied by local springs. I started to say, "The Romans built," but I highly doubt any Romans did the labor of building. Roman engineers did do the equally important design work. Guided tours sometimes get permission to take tourists through the tunnel (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/10/haas-and-goldman-promenades.html )that brought the water through the last hill before crossing the last valley.
Near Yemin Moshe (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/06/montefiores-windmill.html ) you can see another bit of the water system from the Roman period. To the left of the path from Yemin Moshe to the Cable Car Museum (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/05/jerusalem-cable-car.html ) runs a rectangular-cross-section stone channel on a level with the path and in places slightly lower. Some of the thin slabs that topped the aqueduct are gone. I'm surprised they weren't all taken for building material long ago. But there's so much re-useable building stone around.
One guide, who spent much of her childhood in Australia, said, "In Australia they'd build national park around a find like this." Well, if they found a 2000-year-old Roman aqueduct in Australia, I should think they'd pay a lot of attention to it ;=)
The Talpiyot water tunnel was used through much of the period between Roman control and British control. I don't know about this channel, but it doesn't look as if it had to be excavated. A lot of archaeology in Israel is done by noticing what's clearly visible and figuring out what it is and when it was built.
Copyright 2011 Jane S. Fox
posted by Jane S.Fox at 6:53 AM
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