Monday, September 10, 2007

A DRAINAGE CHANNEL IN JERUSALEM has been discovered which is also thought to have been used as an escape route during the siege of Jerusalem in the Great Revolt:
Ancient Escape Hatch Found in Israel

By AMY TEIBEL – 25 minutes ago

JERUSALEM (AP) — Under threat from Romans ransacking Jerusalem 2,000 years ago, many of the city's Jewish residents crowded into an underground drainage channel to hide and later flee the chaos through Jerusalem's southern end.

The ancient tunnel was recently discovered buried beneath rubble, a monument to one of the great dramatic scenes of the destruction of the Second Temple in the year 70 A.D.

The channel was dug beneath what would become the main road of Jerusalem, the archaeology dig's directors, Ronny Reich of the University of Haifa and Eli Shukron of the Israel Antiquities Authority, said Sunday. Shukron said excavators looking for the road happened upon a small drainage channel that led them to the discovery of the massive tunnel two weeks ago.

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