City Of David Dig Unearths Pilgrims' Road To Temple

Haaretz ^ | 1-24-2007 | Nadav Shragai

[blam]

City of David dig unearths pilgrims' road to Temple

By Nadav Shragai

At the end of the 19th century, the archaeologists Bliss and Dickey discovered a short piece of road dating back to the Herodian period in Jerusalem's City of David. The road ascended from south to north in the direction of the Temple Mount. Many years later, in 1963, the archaeologist Kathleen Kenyon found another piece of the road, a little closer to the Temple Mount. When, a little over a year ago, Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) archaeologists found yet another section of it, they believed they had solved a puzzle, and that they could now sketch the course of the main road by which many pilgrims of Second Temple times made their way up to the Temple after immersing themselves in the Siloam Spring. It turned out they were wrong. That road was apparently secondary.

The road that IAA archaeologists Ronny Reich and Eli Shukron have now found, which is much grander, wider and more central, is parallel to the one Bliss and Dickey discovered. Reich believes that at a certain point further to the north, these two roads converged.

[Enosh]

Cool.

Siloam Spring

Which, BTW, was thought of as the "Get out of illness free" card.

One dunk'll do ya.

(Please wait for it to be stirred, not shaken.)

[Publius6961]

Even for those who have visited Israel, articles like this one are useless without a map.

Ok. In the abstract, two roads have been found. Over 3000 years I am amazed that there are only two. Somewhere, approaching Jerusalem.