Warren’s Shaft, Avraham Faust, BAR 29:05, Sep-Oct 2003.

Bible and Beyond
Yes, It Really Was Used to Draw Water

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So many articles have been written about Warren’s Shaft, the ink would probably fill it to overflowing. Yet the puzzle remains unsolved.

By far the most intriguing suggestion that has been made about this 40-foot-deep1 vertical rock chimney is that King David’s general Joab climbed it to get inside Jerusalem and surprise the Jebusites (or Canaanites), thereby enabling his army to conquer the city. David promptly made Jerusalem the capital of the United Monarchy of Israel (in about 990 B.C.E.).

Nice theory! The Bible quotes David as saying, “Whoever would smite the Jebusites, let him touch the tsinnor [usually translated ‘watershaft’]” (2 Samuel 5-8).a That Warren’s Shaft—named for the British explorer and engineer who discovered it in 1867—is the much-disputed tsinnor was a viable suggestion until the studies conducted by the late Yigal Shiloh in the 1980s proved otherwise. Shiloh concluded—after which it was generally accepted—that the Warren’s Shaft system was not created until the time of the Divided Monarchy, in Iron Age II, long after David’s conquest of the city.

Then in the 1990s came the excavations directed by Israeli archaeologists Ronny Reich and Eli Shukron. Their excavations showed that Warren’s Shaft had not been exposed until about 800 B.C.E. Reich and Shukron also concluded that the shaft had never been used to draw water as part of Jerusalem’s complex water system.

They’re probably right on the first point—the shaft was not discovered until about 800 B.C.E., long after David’s conquest of the city. But they’re probably wrong on the second point, for various lines of evidence indicate that it was indeed used to draw water.

In this article I will show, first, that it is quite feasible to use the shaft to draw up water from the spring below. Second, I will show that it was not only possible, but very probable that the shaft was used for this purpose in ancient times.

Reich and Shukron give several reasons why Warren’s Shaft could not have been used to draw water—some of them quite daunting at first glance. Perhaps the most powerful is the inconvenient shape of the shaft. In contrast to the carefully carved tunnel that leads to it, the shaft, formed by karstic action of dripping water, is, in the words of Reich and Shukron, “filled with protrusions that make it very difficult to lower and lift a bucket.”b If water was drawn through this vertical opening, they say, why didn’t the ancients bother to remove the protrusions sticking out from the shaft walls?

Then, too, “The bottom [of the shaft] where the water of the spring collected, was not deep enough to allow a bucket dropped from above to sink conveniently into the water and be filled.”
This is not the first time the question has been raised as to whether this rock chimney was used as a water shaft, although the shaft’s discoverer, Charles Warren, assumed that it was used for this purpose.2

The problems raised by this identification, however, did not escape the attention of Louis-Hugues Vincent, the Dominican father who was permitted to survey and record the progress of the famous Parker Mission that explored and cleaned the entire water complex between 1909 and 1911.c Vincent noted, “The irregularity of the shaft certainly does not seem to favor its being a place to pull buckets of water up. The final curve especially, which completely displaces the axis, seems to make it quite impossible to dip a bucket in the water brought here from the spring.”3

Parker’s team nevertheless succeeded in using the shaft to draw water. Vincent continued- “A few measurements soon showed us that by choosing a centre line at a more convenient point this was not impossible, and a direct drop could be obtained from the mouth of the shaft to the bottom.”
This was not simply an academic experiment. Parker actually used the shaft to remove some of the mud from the tunnels at the bottom-

A scaffolding was built over the mouth of the well, a pulley fixed; buckets at each end of the cord used to keep the work going all the time. After a few trials the right place was found to give the buckets a direct fall. They used to bang against the side of the rock, rebound, and then vanish through the narrowest part with an awful clatter. When it was a question of pulling it up again, the bucketful of mud was put on the hook below and pulled slowly up, hitting the sides all the way, making a dreadful fuss as it came through the narrow part; but in spite of all this fuss, very little ever dropped out the buckets [emphasis supplied].4

The fact that Vincent did use the shaft to draw the buckets, which came up full of mud, means that despite the difficulties he described, it was not an impractical thing to do.5 Vincent concluded, “this proved…that it was quite possible to draw water from the top of the shaft, and it must have been easier to do it with the water skins of the country than it was with buckets.”

While Reich and Shukron have written in this magazine that “we can definitively state that Warren’s Shaft never served as a watershaft,”d a picture appeared in a later issue of BAR (reprinted opposite, at right) showing that, as the caption in that issue stated, “[Reich and Shukron] could easily lower a rope down the center of Warren’s Shaft.”e

This, I think, is enough to prove that it is quite possible to use the shaft to draw something up from the bottom, whether water (in the case of the ancient Israelites) or mud (in the case of the Parker Mission). Incidentally, this analysis also accounts for the fact that without a wooden platform at the top of the shaft, a bucket cannot be dropped straight down into the shaft. That is true, but Vincent built such a wooden scaffolding for this purpose, and even Reich and Shukron concede that the ancients too could have easily constructed a wooden platform that would solve this problem.

Another objection, as we have seen, is that the level of the spring is lower than the bottom of the shaft, so that water would flow into the shaft only to a depth of a foot or so. This objection is easily countered. Indeed, the ancient inhabitants, we know, frequently manipulated the level of the water from the spring by means of dams. The level of the entrance to the channel that runs south along the eastern flank of the City of David (known as Channel II, as numbered by Vincent) is some 8 to 9 feet higher than the level of the Gihon Spring, which supplies the water. How could water flow upwards into Channel II, along the flank of the Kidron Valley? The complex water system under the ancient city of Jerusalem includes not only a maze of tunnels, but also walls—walls that served as dams, raising the level of the water. One of the walls (probably Wall i on Vincent’s plan) blocked the water from flowing directly out into the Kidron Valley at the Gihon Spring, and instead, steadily raised the water level until it reached the entrance to Channel II. Once at this level, the water flowed into the tunnel.6 The same method was probably used to increase the level of the water at the bottom of Warren’s Shaft.7

Therefore, when Warren’s Shaft was used in ancient times to draw water, the water level was probably several meters higher, in which case there would be no major problem in filling the buckets at the bottom.

I have shown that in ancient times it was quite possible to draw water up the shaft. But did the ancient Israelites use it for this purpose? I believe the answer is yes.

A tunnel connects the spring to the bottom of the shaft. Why was this tunnel dug if not to bring water to the bottom of the shaft so that it could be drawn up by someone standing at the top? It was a laborious effort to channel the water from the spring to the bottom of the shaft. The only viable explanation for doing so is that someone wanted to have the ability to draw water through the shaft.

Reich and Shukron are, of course, aware of the problem this tunnel presents. They suggest that it was dug for some purpose other than to channel water to the bottom of the shaft. They say the tunnel was dug, not to lead from the spring to the bottom of the shaft, but from the bottom of the shaft to the spring. In their view, the tunnel was dug outward from the shaft and not immediately toward the spring; only later was the connection to the spring made.8 The idea that the tunneling started at the bottom of the shaft is not a new idea,9 but it has grave problems, especially for someone who claims it was impossible to use the shaft to draw water. If, as Reich and Shukron claim, it was impossible to lift buckets with water from the bottom of the shaft, how was it possible to raise up all the rock debris produced when the tunnel was dug?

Moreover, digging outward would be quite difficult for a person standing at the bottom of this very narrow shaft. The editor of this magazine described the bottom of the shaft based on first-hand examination- “It was a small cave, narrow and confining.”f Such a technical problem could easily have been solved by enlarging and straightening the cave-like enclosure at the bottom of the shaft. That this was not done suggests that the tunnel was not dug from this spot, but was the end of the tunnel that started at the spring.

Try to imagine what it would be like to draw buckets full of stones and rocks from the tunnel excavation up the shaft, and what would happen to the buckets that didn’t manage to complete the long and tortuous way up. The rocks and stones would fall on the workers’ heads!
One must conclude that either there was no problem in raising buckets (thereby undermining Reich and Shukron’s major claim and the principal reason given for the impracticality of using Warren’s Shaft to draw water) or that the tunnel wasn’t dug from this end (thereby undermining the complex scenario they present).

So we must again ask- Why was a tunnel, bringing water from the spring to the bottom of the shaft, dug, unless someone wanted to draw the water up to the top of the shaft?

I believe what happened was this- I agree with Reich and Shukron that, for some unknown reason, in the eighth century B.C.E. the city authorities decided to renovate or enlarge the long upper tunnel that led to the pool (or perhaps pools) that had collected the water from the Gihon Spring since about 1800 B.C.E.g They did this in part by lowering the floor (creating a tunnel 20 feet high in places). When they lowered the floor of this upper tunnel, they discovered what we now call Warren’s Shaft, a long karstic dissolution chimney inside the dolomite layer of the foundation rock.

Once the shaft was accidentally discovered, the planners immediately realized its potential to draw water. They therefore ceased their original enterprise,10 whatever its goal, and started a new operation whose aim was to bring water to the bottom of the shaft. They dug an additional tunnel and brought the water to the bottom of the shaft and then raised the level by reusing the dam.11 They surely built a wooden structure at the top, so they could lower their buckets from the center of the shaft.

Why they didn’t remove the protrusions within the shaft is more difficult to explain. They may have regarded the removal of the protrusions as unnecessary or too difficult. Or because the removal wasn’t essential, they avoided it.h

The lack of rope marks, which might have been etched by frequent use, on the rock at the top of the shaft is irrelevant. The buckets would probably have been dropped straight down from the platform. Moreover, the rock is very hard, and I don’t think such marks are really to be expected. It is probable that the shaft was only used for emergencies and for a very short period of time- Ancient Jerusalemites would have found it much easier and more pleasant to go to the spring (or pool) by the regular, though longer, way above ground. In any event, this system was soon replaced (at the end of the eighth century B.C.E.) by Hezekiah’s Tunnel, which took the water from the Gihon Spring directly to the other side of the city by means of an almost 1750-foot horizontal tunnel.

In sum, there is every reason to believe that Warren’s Shaft was indeed used to draw water—but not at the time of King David. Whether Joab got into the city through an earlier water system, or in connection to one, is a matter for another article.

a. Note that all that had to be done was to “touch” the tsinnor, not, as often translated, to “get up” the tsinnor. Z. Abels and A. Arlit have plausibly suggested that, this being so, Joab, David’s soon-to-be general, didn’t have to come into the city through the water system. He only had to “harm” the system and divert the water out in order to force the inhabitants to surrender.

b. Ronny Reich and Eli Shukron, “Light at the End of the Tunnel,” BAR 25-01.

c. Captain Montague B. Parker hoped to find a tunnel leading underground to the treasures of Solomon’s Temple, supposedly buried in a cave beneath the Temple Mount. The mission ended when Jerusalem’s Muslims rioted upon learning of this foolish scheme and finding Parker excavating beneath the Dome of the Rock. See Neil Asher Silberman, “In Search of Solomon’s Lost Treasures,” BAR 06-04.

d. Ronny Reich and Eli Shukron, “Light at the End of the Tunnel.” BAR 25-01.

e. See Hershel Shanks, “I Climbed Warren’s Shaft (But Joab Never Did),” BAR 25-06.

f. Hershel Shanks, “I Climbed Warren’s Shaft (But Joab Never Did),” BAR 25-06.

g. Qualification- If this system had been in continuous use the whole time. If not, perhaps they wanted to open a new system. The precise scenario is irrelevant.

h. However, Vincent did notice some polishing around the neck of the shaft.

1. 40 feet is the height of the shaft from the point where one stands today downward.

2. Wilson and Warren, The Recovery of Jerusalem- A Narrative of Exploration and Discovery in the City and the Holy Land (London- Bentley, 1871); Yigal Shiloh, “The City of David I,” Qedem 19 (1985), pp. 21, 24. Warren even reported the discovery of an iron ring that was situated above the shaft in order to facilitate the lifting of buckets (The Recovery of Jerusalem, pp. 238 and 247–248). Vincent, however, reported that it had disappeared. See L.-H. Vincent, Underground Jerusalem- Discoveries on the Hill of the Ophel (1909–1911) (London- H. Cox, 1911), pp. 15–16.

3. Vincent, Underground Jerusalem, p. 16. See also Z. Abels and A. Arbit, “The City of David- Controversy Concerning a Protected Access to Water in the Middle Bronze II (MB2) Period,” in A. Faust and E. Baruch, eds., New Studies on Jerusalem, Proceedings of the 5th Conference (Ramat-Gan, 1999), p. 8.

4. Vincent, Underground Jerusalem, p. 16.

5. Vincent, Underground Jerusalem, p. 16. It should be noted that at some point they put a plank halfway down the shaft, where one of the workers guided the bucket through the narrow part.

6. Several walls were discovered by Vincent (see, for example, Plates I and II in Underground Jerusalem). Their use to increase the level of water was apparently identified by M. Hecker, “Water Supply of Jerusalem in Ancient Times,” in M. Avi-Yonah, ed., Sepher Yerushalayim, Jerusalem, its natural conditions, history and development from the origins to the present day (Jerusalem, 1956), pp. 191–218 [in Hebrew]. The importance of this issue has been stressed in recent years by Abels and Arbit (see, for example, their publication cited above).

7. See M. Hecker, “Water Supply of Jerusalem in Ancient Times,” p. 194; see also Z. Abels and A. Arbit, “Some New Thoughts on Jerusalem’s Ancient Water System,” Palestine Exploration Quarterly 127 (1995), p. 4; and Z. Abels and A. Arbit, The City of David Water Systems, Supplement to Jerusalem’s Water Supply from the 18th Century B.C.E. to the Present (Jerusalem, 1994), p. 13.

8. There is no need to discuss the details of their complex reconstruction, as it does not impact the main arguments of this discussion.

9. See already Vincent, Underground Jerusalem, p. 14; see also Abels and Arbit’s articles cited above.

10. Their remodeling effort—that is, lowering the floor—stopped at Warren’s Shaft. When they discovered the shaft, they changed their original plan, whatever that was. Once the shaft was discovered, the excavators realized that they could use it to draw water. The planners, therefore, stopped working on the original plan, and developed an alternative one that incorporated the shaft. The sudden cessation of all work precisely following the discovery of the shaft seems to indicate that this discovery was the reason for stopping.

Reich and Shukron do not have a good explanation for why the enlarging work suddenly stopped at Warren’s Shaft. They have suggested that the work was abandoned because the excavation of Hezekiah’s Tunnel made it unnecessary. Though it is not impossible that the shaft was discovered just as the engineers decided to abandon all work on Hezekiah’s Tunnel, this suggestion is very problematic. The creation of Hezekiah’s Tunnel was a very difficult enterprise, with no warranty of success. It is extremely unlikely that the engineers would neither use the shaft nor continue their original operation, at least in tandem with the work on Hezekiah’s Tunnel, until the latter was successfully completed. The suggestion that the chance discovery of the shaft occurred exactly when the tunnel was finished seems too fantastic, and extremely unlikely, especially when we recall that a tunnel was dug to connect the bottom of the shaft with the spring. See Reich and Shukron, “Light at the End of the Tunnel,” BAR 25-01, and Reich and Shukron, “The System of Rock-Cut Tunnels Near Gihon in Jerusalem Reconsidered,” Revue Biblique 107 (2000).

11. It is irrelevant whether they dug only Channel VI, or some other tunnel or combination of tunnels, in order to bring the water to the bottom of the shaft.