The first people to settle Megiddo must have seen a spring on the surface. Over the centuries, as the water table dropped, they kept having to dig down after it. By Solomon's time, the drawers of water had to leave the city, descend the slope of the tell and continue beneath the surface of the plain. Such a system was untenable in a state of siege. Feeling threatened by the Arameans and Assyrians, Ahab's people (about 875 BC) dug a water shaft from inside the city. (The much older one at Jerusalem may have given them the idea.) At first they had to build retaining walls (partly visible in the pit), so that the earlier layers of civilization would not crumble in on them. Then they encountered bedrock, which they chiseled out (no one knows how long it took) with the help of iron tools. Having reached the level of the spring (for us, 183 steps down), they then dug a horizontal tunnel to reach it. Today the spring is gone. From where it was, when one climbs toward the exit over the earlier (Solomonic?) steps. One sees niches in the bedrock on the right: these are its former locations.

Megiddo: An Introduction   More about why Megiddo was important   Campaign of Pharaoh Thutmosis III   The cultic area   Megiddo and the battles in the Jezreel Plain   Logistics for a visit to the site

© 2003 Near East Tourist Agency (NET)

Text © 2003 Stephen Langfur