Friday, November 11, 2011

Hezekiah's Tunnel

Hezekiah was a Judean king around 700 BC.  In preparations for war with the Assyrians he dug a 1700 foot tunnel through the bedrock around Jerusalem to protect the water supply to the city.  Just recently, they opened this tunnel to tourists and you can walk the length of it underground through the spring water which still flows.  Of course, we did this.  The kids knew we were going to do this and looked forward to it the whole day, as it was the last thing we did.  I was a bit nervous about being in a small space underground but it wasn't too bad.  The water was freezing but mostly only calf deep but at the start it was quite deep and most of us got wet.

The water at its deepest wasn't quite this deep but close!

Heading underground

Olivia and Courtnie lead the way.
Tiny flashlights were our only light source.

Emily, Tyler and Shmuel (our guide) behind me.
Of course, Emily screamed alot - she lost her shoe, the water was cold, it was scary, etc.

Amazing that this was carved out of the bedrock in 700 BC.  How did they do it?  How did they know what path to take? How did they engineer it so the water would flow through it?

1 comment:

Carla said...

Cool tunnel & LOVE the Canada shirts!!