The Pool of Siloam
A large stepped pool from the time of Jesus, uncovered by accident in Jerusalem in 2004. Most scholars identify it as the pool of Siloam, where John’s Gospel says Jesus sent a blind man to wash.
In 2004 workers repairing a sewer pipe south of the Old City exposed stone steps. Archaeologists Ronny Reich and Eli Shukron found that the steps belonged to a large pool, more than 50 meters long, with flights of steps separated by landings. Coins in the plaster and fill date its use to the 1st centuries BC and AD, ending around the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70.
John 9 tells how Jesus put clay on a blind man’s eyes and told him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam,” and the man came back seeing. The small pool shown to visitors for centuries dates from Byzantine times. The discovery shows a large public pool at the place the Gospel implies, which the excavators think pilgrims used for ritual washing before going up to the Temple. Along with the Pool of Bethesda (John 5:2), it has led many scholars to give more weight to the Gospel of John’s knowledge of Jerusalem.
In December 2022 Israeli authorities announced that the rest of the pool would be excavated, and work began in 2023. Nahshon Szanton, who directed that work, has argued that this large pool is the one Josephus calls Solomon’s Pool, used for bathing, and that the Siloam of John 9 was the smaller pool at the tunnel’s outlet, as Yoel Elitzur had also proposed. Both lay in the same water system at the foot of the City of David.
Why it’s rated supported
This rating covers the identification of the 2004 pool with the pool of Siloam in John 9. Ronny Reich of the University of Haifa and Eli Shukron of the Israel Antiquities Authority excavated it and dated it by coins and pottery to the late Second Temple period, and most scholars accept the identification because it lies at the outlet of the Siloam water system. Some disagree: Nahshon Szanton of the Israel Antiquities Authority, who directed the 2023 excavation, argues that it is the pool Josephus calls Solomon’s Pool, and that John’s Siloam was the smaller pool beside it. Either way, a pool of Siloam stood where the Gospel places it.
Supported: Strong evidence, but its link to the biblical text is probable rather than certain. About the ratings
In scripture
Timeline
- 1st century BCThe pool is built or rebuilt; coins of Alexander Jannaeus (103–76 BC) in its plaster give the earliest possible date.
- c. AD 30Jesus sends a blind man to wash in the pool (John 9).
- AD 70The Romans destroy Jerusalem; the pool falls out of use.
- 2004Steps are uncovered during sewer repairs; Reich and Shukron excavate.
- 2023Excavation of the rest of the pool begins.
Sources
- Shanks, Hershel. “The Siloam Pool: Where Jesus Cured the Blind Man.” Biblical Archaeology Review 31, no. 5 (2005). Link to this source
- Reich, Ronny, and Eli Shukron. “The Pool of Siloam in Jerusalem of the Late Second Temple Period and Its Surroundings.” In Unearthing Jerusalem: 150 Years of Archaeological Research in the Holy City, edited by Katharina Galor and Gideon Avni, 241–256. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2011. Link to this source
- von Wahlde, Urban C. “The Pool of Siloam: The Importance of the New Discoveries for Our Understanding of Ritual Immersion in Late Second Temple Judaism and the Gospel of John.” In John, Jesus, and History, Volume 2: Aspects of Historicity in the Fourth Gospel, edited by Paul N. Anderson, Felix Just, and Tom Thatcher, 155–174. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2009. Link to this source
- Elitzur, Yoel. “The Siloam Pool, ‘Solomon’s Pool’, Was a Swimming Pool.” Palestine Exploration Quarterly 140, no. 1 (2008): 17–25. Link to this source
- Szanton, Nahshon. “Ritual Purification and Bathing: The Location and Function of Siloam Pool and Solomon’s Pool in Second Temple Period Jerusalem.” ʿAtiqot 113 (2023): 29–44. Link to this source
Last reviewed October 14, 2026.