Bible Archeology Discoveries

Hezekiah's Tunnel Inscription
Discovered: Jerusalem, Israel (1880)
From: (c. 701 BC)
Current Home: Istanbul Archaeology Museums

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In 701 BCE Assyrian king Sennacherib attempted to take Jerusalem and laid siege to the city. In the end he failed to capture it when, according to the Bible, God's angel smote all the leaders and captains of his forces. (Many believe it was a plague that swept through the military camp.)

In anticipation of the seige, King Hezekiah had arranged an amazing engineering feat in order to bring water from outside the city walls into the Pool of Siloam in the southern City of David. (Chronicles 32:30)

This Hebrew inscription dates back to the eighth century BC and was discovered by two children in 1880 a few yards from the southern exit of “Hezkiah’s Tunnel”. The inscription describes the dramatic moment of an encounter between the two groups of masons who worked on the tunnel, one group starting outside the city wall at Gihon Spring, and the other group inside. It was engraved in the rock close to the exit of the tunnel, and not at the meeting point between the groups.

"Now the rest of the acts of Hezekiah, and all his might, and how he made the pool, and the conduit, and brought water into the city, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah?
And Hezekiah slept with his fathers; and Manasseh his son reigned in his stead."
2 Kings 20:20-21

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Notable Finds

Much of what is described in Bible text is lost to history, requiring readers to assume the historicity of the scriptures.

However, many of the places and events described in the Old and New Testaments are periodically corroborated by archeological finds.

Some finds simply help us to better understand things from the ancient world. However, others provide important evidence as to the truth of scripture regarding things about which there had previously been skepticism.

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