Archaeologists in Israel have discovered a massive tunnel said to be used by Jews to escape Roman conquest of Jerusalem 2,000 years ago. The discovery of the drainage channel was entirely co-incidental and was buried beneath the rubble.
The War of the Jews:
The Second Temple which was the center of Jewish worship during the second Jewish Commonwealth witnessed one of the great dramatic scenes of the destruction in the year 70 A.D. when Jerusalem was being conquered by the Romans. Under the threat from Romans ransacking Jerusalem, many of the Jewish residents crowded into an underground drainage channel to hide and later fled through Jerusalem’s southern end.
The walls of the tunnel are made of ashlar stones that are three feet deep and reach a height of 10 feet in some places. The archaeologists have found several manholes and portions of the original plastering. Pottery shards, vessel fragments and coins from the end of the Second Temple period were among the other things discovered inside the channel.
Archaeologists are of view that the channel is more than a half-mile long and lead to the Kidron River. So far, 100 yards of the channel have been uncovered and the team plans to proceed further.
Source: ABC News
