ABSTRACT

There is at present no evidence for an organized sewage system in CrusaderJerusalem. An ancient system of drains running under the street along the Tyropoeon Valley and under David Street may possibly still have functioned in the Middle Ages, and it seems likely that there were solutions for specific problem areas. There was some form of drainage to dispose of the refuse from the cattle market and the tanners located in the south-east, perhaps into the Tyropoeon drain which led out towards the Pool of Silwan in the south. A drain recorded in the nineteenth century, leading waste from the bathhouse in the Patriarch’s Quarter into the ancient conduit under David Street, was constructed in the Crusader period, and there must have been other such works in the city.1 However, there is one place where archaeology has recently uncovered evidence for a large drainage project. This is outside the walls in the Valley of Jehoshaphat. Around 870, Bernard the Monk visited the Tomb of the Virgin Mary and wrote that it had no roof and ‘stands rain badly’.2 Being situated low in the valley, and lying directly in the path of the Kidron Brook, the church suffered greatly from the flow of water in winter months. At some time in the twelfth century, the Franks carried out a major project aimed at alleviating this problem by diverting the water of the stream to the west, out of the path of the church, via a large barrelvaulted conduit. A broad dam was constructed 67 m north of the church to redirect the waters towards the conduit.3