Archaeologists in Jerusalem have unearthed a paved assembly area and water channel at the site of a pool where some Christians believe Jesus gave sight to a blind man, Israel's Antiquities Authority said on Thursday. The discovery allows them to build a better picture of what the Siloam Pool might have looked like nearly 2,000 years ago - suggesting it was meant for ritual immersion rather than for use as a reservoir as some have thought.
"We have excavated it and dated it very accurately with coins found in the cement which the pool was built of," Roni Reich of Haifa University, one of the dig leaders, told Reuters. "Hopefully we can continue the dig."
The earliest coins to be found dated from the middle of the century before Jesus's birth.
A wide flight of steps has been uncovered leading down towards the site. A narrow channel carries water through the honey-coloured rocks.
The Siloam Pool is mentioned in the Bible's New Testament as the place where Jesus performed the miracle of giving sight to a man who was blind from birth - first anointing his eyes with clay and then telling him to wash in the pool.
"He went his way therefore, and washed, and came seeing," the New Testament Book of John says.
The pool, which has been a focus of research since the 19th century, is also mentioned in Jewish historical sources as the site of water considered to be ritually pure for use in ceremonies. After Islam came to the Holy Land, the pool is thought to have remained in use for bathing and its waters were seen by some as having healing powers.
The site is near Jerusalem's walled Old City, in territory captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war and then annexed in a move not recognised internationally.
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