Silwan Tunnel Collapse Site — VIDEO

Yesterday I passed along the Haaretz story about the partial collapse of an archaeological tunnel in Silwan, aka the City of David. The tunnel route, following an ancient paved plaza and stepped street, had been opened to the public earlier in the year.

Now, video of the collapse site at the City of David has been posted on-line HERE. It shows consolidation and reinforcement work already going on. The location shown in the video is at the very beginning of the tunnel route, actually along the Herodian plaza linking the Siloam Pool with the western stepped street. The video is from the folks at Peace Now’s Settlement Watch program.

Below is an aerial of the very southern tip of the City of David identifying the approximate location shown in the video, according to my best reckoning. It is my screen-grab and mark-up of a much larger interactive map from the Emek Shaveh organization. (The area marked “11” is the exposed northern edge of the Lower Siloam Pool plus the paved plaza extending to the west; “12” marks the stepped streets ascending on the east and west sides of the Upper Siloam Pool; the dashed blue line shows the route of Hezekiah’s Tunnel. The map is actually a bit dated, as the excavated underground route now extends northward all the way to the Temple Mount — see my previous post.)

Silwan Collapse Site, Dec. 2011. Base map: Emeq Shaveh.

UPDATE / 24 APR 2012

I have learned that the clearing, repair and reinforcement work related to the collapse have now been completed. The entire underground route, from the Siloam Pool to the foot of the Temple Mount is once again open to visitors.