Radiometric dating of the Siloam Tunnel, Jerusalem

Amos Frumkin (), Aryeh Shimron and Jeff Rosenbaum
Additional contact information
Amos Frumkin: The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Aryeh Shimron: Geological Survey of Israel
Jeff Rosenbaum: Reading University

Nature, 2003, vol. 425, issue 6954, 169-171

Abstract: Abstract The historical credibility of texts from the Bible is often debated when compared with Iron Age archaeological finds (refs . 1, 2 and references therein). Modern scientific methods may, in principle, be used to independently date structures that seem to be mentioned in the biblical text, to evaluate its historical authenticity. In reality, however, this approach is extremely difficult because of poor archaeological preservation, uncertainty in identification, scarcity of datable materials, and restricted scientific access into well-identified worship sites. Because of these problems, no well-identified Biblical structure has been radiometrically dated until now. Here we report radiocarbon and U–Th dating of the Siloam Tunnel3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10, proving its Iron Age II date; we conclude that the Biblical text presents an accurate historic record of the Siloam Tunnel's construction. Being one of the longest ancient water tunnels lacking intermediate shafts11,12, dating the Siloam Tunnel is a key to determining where and when this technological breakthrough took place. Siloam Tunnel dating also refutes a claim13 that the tunnel was constructed in the second century bc.

Date: 2003
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature01875 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:425:y:2003:i:6954:d:10.1038_nature01875

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/nature01875

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().