Talk:Sultan's Pool

From The Independent, Volume 51, Issue 1, 1899


BIBLICAL RESEARCH. THE "LOWER POOL," JERUSALEM. In the Bible, especially in the Old Testament, pools are often mentioned in connection with Jerusalem, but as a rule their locality is not stated. Dr. Conrad Schick has made an attempt to identify some of these pools, and in the last Quarterly Statement of the Palestine Exploration Fund has taken up Hirket en Sultan, the largest of the group. This pool is situated in the western valley, opposite the southeast corner of the city wall, and 335 feet west of it. It is 588 feet long, about 265 feet wide, making an area of 155,820 square feet, and is constructed in a very simple manner by two walls being built across the valley. The lower wall, on account of the descent of the valley, is much higher than the upper, and is also thicker and stronger, and supported by a mound of earth. Its thickness i8 likely to be the same as that of the old Pool of Siloam, about 28 feet, while its hight is 60 feet. The Bethlehem carriage road now passes over it. On examining the high lower wall, Dr. Schick discovered indications of three or four different periods of building, which explain to some degree the history of the pool. Originally the pool was smaller, as can be seen by examining the rock bottom and sides, and measured only 480 feet in length and 130 feet in width, making an area of 62,000 Bquare feet, about the same size as Birket Mantilla. At that time the southern wall of Birket es Sultan was 16 feet lower. After the pool was enlarged the water at its highest point came up to the level of the south wall, GO feet high, while at the north wall it could reach only 10 feet in hight on account of the slope of the valley. But as this north wall is 36 feet high, the upper 26 feet were not needed for the pool, and it seems clear that this wall formed at the same time the lower wall of another pool situated higher up in the valley. This was a musfaih, or filter-pool. In heavy rains the surface water first ran into this smaller pool, the particles of earth sank to the bottom, and the clear water then flowed over into the real reservoir. Such a filter-pool must be cleaned from time to time, else it becomes gradually filled with earth, as this one has. That such an upper pool existed at this spot is stated by Rabbi Schwarz in his book, "Das Heilige Land," published in 1852. But not only is this pool now full of earth, but the neighboring ground has become higher and higher, so that the arches of the aqueduct, leading from Solomon's Pool to the Temple area, which, fifty years ago, were open up to more than the hight of a man, are now entirely filled in and only a few feet of the wall appear above the ground. To the next generation nothing will be visible. At the bottom of the large pool, toward the southeastern corner, there existed a cave, the greater part of the roof of which has fallen in. This cave was closed on the side of the pool by a thick wall, and it is possible that in ancient times a small spring flowed out from it. Such springs are often found in the neighborhood of Jerusalem, and if one really existed at this spot it was probably the "Dragon Well" (Neh. 2, 13), which would have been a reason for building the pool, as was done at Bethel and other places. In II Kings 18: 17, and Isaiah 7:3, and 36: 2, an "upper pool" is mentioned, and this implies that there must have been a " lower pool," which in Isaiah 22: 0 is really mentioned. As in one and the same valley two old pools are found—the Mumilla and the Birket es Sultan —it was only natural to locate those mentioned in Scripture here. It has been proved that Birket es Sultan existed when Jerusalem was destroyed by Titus. But the first distinct notices we have of it come from the Crusading times, when it was called " Lacus Germani." At this time the pool was restored and enlarged to its present dimensions. About a century later, in 1291, Sultan Muhamed ibn Kilian restored the aqueduct, built the smaller filter-pool, and repaired the large one, so that from that time it was known as the Pool of the Sultan (.Birket es Sultan). In 1484 the pool was apparently in decay and was again restored, and seems to have been in operation until 1723, when it was described by Ladoir and Pococke as "ruinous," as all later writers describe it. For the past dozen years the dry bottom of the pool has been used as the place of the weekly cattle market, and in summer as a threshing-floor, while the level rocky ground on the northeast serves every year for pounding hamra. The "Dragon Well," which Dr. Schick believes to have been the root cave at tne bottom of Birket es Sultan, is mentioned only once in the Bible (Neh. 2: 13), on the occasion of the examination of the ruined walls of Jerusalem by Nebemiah at night. He says: "And I went out by night by the gate of the valley, even before the dragon well, and to the dung port, and viewed the walls of Jerusalem. . . . Then I went on to the gate of the fountain, and to the King's Pool. . . . Then went I up in the night by the brook, and viewed the wall, and turned back, and entered by the gate of the valley, and so returned." Most of the topographers, from Robinson down to Professor T. F. Wright, put the Valley Gate in the neighborhood of the present Jaffa Gate. Now Nehemiah, after passing this gate, came to the Dragon Well, as he was going southward down the valley, and not westward; so the Dragon Well cannot be looked for at Birket Mantilla, as so many writers have done, but with more proba bility at the so-called lower pool, or Birket es Sultan. The Dragon Well was therefore the spring in the rock cave at the bottom of the pool. Much confusion has been caused by the fact that both Rohinson and Mr. Birch speak of the Dragon Well as existing somewhere in the vicinity of the upper pool west of the city, and identifying it wrongly with "Gihon." Whereas Nehemiah had no need to go from the Valley Gate westward to such a distance. He wanted to go round the city and therefore down the valley (southward), where he soon passed the lower pool, or the Dragon Well. -

Public domain. Pieces may be used in article. Muslim lo Juheu (talk) 00:44, 17 February 2011 (UTC)