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Mamilla Pool (also known as ''Birket Mamilla'') is one of several ancient
reservoir A reservoir (; ) is an enlarged lake behind a dam, usually built to water storage, store fresh water, often doubling for hydroelectric power generation. Reservoirs are created by controlling a watercourse that drains an existing body of wa ...
s that supplied water to the inhabitants of
Jerusalem Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...
. It is located outside the walls of the Old City about northwest of Jaffa Gate in the centre of the Mamilla Cemetery. With a capacity of 30,000 cubic metres, it is connected by an underground channel to Hezekiah's Pool in the Christian Quarter of the Old City. It was thought as possible that it has received water via the so-called Upper or High-Level Aqueduct from Solomon's Pools, but 2010 excavations have discovered the aqueduct's final segment at a much lower elevation near the Jaffa Gate, making it impossible to function as a feeding source for the Mamilla Pool.


Etymology

There are a number of theories on the origin of the name ''Mamilla''. John Gray writes that it may be a corruption of the Hebrew word for 'the filler' (m'malle'), though that is uncertain. According to
Vincent Vincent (Latin: ''Vincentius'') is a masculine given name originating from the Roman name ''Vincentius'', which itself comes from the Latin verb ''vincere'', meaning "to conquer." People with the given name Artists *Vincent Apap (1909–2003) ...
and
Abel Abel ( ''Hébel'', in pausa ''Hā́ḇel''; ''Hábel''; , ''Hābēl'') is a biblical figure in the Book of Genesis within the Abrahamic religions. Born as the second son of Adam and Eve, the first two humans created by God in Judaism, God, he ...
, the name of the pool may be derived from a Byzantine-period woman, ''Mamilla'' being a Latin female name, possibly abbreviated from ''Maximilla''. Pringle cites Vincent and Abel. They mention in this context a 9th-century pilgrim who wrote that the pool was named after a pious matron, Mamilla, the wife of Thomas, who survived the 614 fall of the city. This they find to be plausible, conceding that there was no proof for the connection as of 1922. They further speculated that she might have sponsored the construction of the pool in a year of drought, for the benefit of the quarter adjacent to the Church of the Resurrection. Pringle concurs in 1993 with Vincent & Abel that it is more likely that the church was named after the pool, rather than the other way around, a theory proposed for instance by George Williams and Robert Willis in 1849, who saw the pool named for a church that once stood near the pool and dedicated to Saint ''Mamilla'' or ''Babila''.


History

The pool's original date of construction is unknown. Biblical scholar Edward Robinson speculated that the pool may have been the ''Upper Pool'' mentioned in the
Book of Isaiah The Book of Isaiah ( ) is the first of the Latter Prophets in the Hebrew Bible and the first of the Major Prophets in the Christian Old Testament. It is identified by a superscription as the words of the 8th-century BC prophet Isaiah ben Amo ...
(), seeing that it is the only pool situated on the highest ground outside of Jerusalem, and entraps the runoff waters of the upper watercourse of the
Hinnom valley Gehenna ( ; ) or Gehinnom ( or ) is a Biblical toponym that has acquired various theological connotations, including as a place of divine punishment, in Jewish eschatology. The place is first mentioned in the Hebrew Bible as part of the border ...
. Others have speculated that it may have been the Serpent's Pool mentioned by
Josephus Flavius Josephus (; , ; ), born Yosef ben Mattityahu (), was a Roman–Jewish historian and military leader. Best known for writing '' The Jewish War'', he was born in Jerusalem—then part of the Roman province of Judea—to a father of pr ...
.


Roman period

A Herodian construction date, proposed by older researchers, has been disputed by more recent studies, which date the construction of the pool to the Byzantine period. The older theory is based on the fact that during the rule of
Herod the Great Herod I or Herod the Great () was a History of the Jews in the Roman Empire, Roman Jewish client king of the Herodian kingdom of Judea. He is known for his colossal building projects throughout Judea. Among these works are the rebuilding of the ...
(37–4 BCE), improvements were made to the water supply system in Jerusalem. It posits that two new pools constructed during his reign, the Pool of the Towers and the Serpent's Pool (''Birket es-Sultan'' or Sultan's Pool), were fed by the Mamilla Pool via aqueducts. Itzik Schwiki of the Jerusalem Center Site Preservation Council attributes the construction of the Mamilla Pool itself to Herod.


Byzantine period

The possibility that the pool was built during the Byzantine period has had its supporters among researchers for at least a century. Following the Persian capture of Jerusalem from the Byzantines in 614, tens of thousands of Christians were massacred by Jews at the pool. Israeli archaeologist
Ronny Reich Ronny Reich (; born 1947) is an Israeli archaeologist, excavator and scholar of the ancient remains of Jerusalem. Education Reich studied archaeology and geography at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His MA thesis (supervised by Prof. Yigae ...
estimates a death toll of 60,000 people before the Persian authorities put an end to the killing. The eyewitness account of Strategius of St. Sabas narrates: "Jews ransomed the Christians from the hands of the Persian soldiers for good money, and slaughtered them with great joy at Mamilla Pool, and it ran with blood." The ''Sulha al-Quds'', the treaty of Jerusalem's capitulation to Muslim forces in 638, can only be understood in the context of the massacre at Mamilla. In it, the Christian Patriarch
Sophronius of Jerusalem Sophronius (; ; c. 560 – March 11, 638), called Sophronius the Sophist, was the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of the city known as Aelia Capitolina and then Jerusalem from 634 until his death. He is venerated as a saint in the Eastern Orthodox and ...
required that the Arab ruler
Umar Umar ibn al-Khattab (; ), also spelled Omar, was the second Rashidun caliph, ruling from August 634 until his assassination in 644. He succeeded Abu Bakr () and is regarded as a senior companion and father-in-law of the Islamic prophet Mu ...
protect the people of Jerusalem from the Jews.


Crusader period

During the period of Crusader rule over Jerusalem in the 12th century, Mamilla pool was known as ''the Patriarch's Lake'', and the Pool of Hezekiah inside the city walls that it fed was known as the ''Pool of the Patriarch's Bath''.


19th century (late Ottoman period)

Throughout the late Ottoman period, the Mamilla pool's environs were being used as the place of a Muslim cemetery, for which reason many grave stones can still be seen surrounding the area. In the 19th century, Horatio Balch Hackett described the pool:
At the distance of several hundred yards we come to another pool, ''Birket el-Mamilla'', generally supposed to be the Upper Gihon of Scripture, (Isaiah 36, 2.) This reservoir is still used, and on the ninth of April contained three or more feet of water. It is about three hundred feet long, two hundred wide, and twenty feet deep. It has steps at two of the corners, which enable the people not only to descend and fetch up water, but to lead down animals to drink. It is customary, also, to bathe here.


20th century

After the
1948 Arab–Israeli war The 1948 Arab–Israeli War, also known as the First Arab–Israeli War, followed the 1947–1948 civil war in Mandatory Palestine, civil war in Mandatory Palestine as the second and final stage of the 1948 Palestine war. The civil war becam ...
, the Jerusalem municipality temporarily tried to connect the pool to the Jerusalem water supply, and coated the pool with cement.Hidden Treasures in Jerusalem
, the Jerusalem Tourism Authority
Eventually, the pool fell into disuse.


Dimensions

The pool's dimensions as recorded by Edward Robinson in the mid-19th century give a depth of , a length of , and a width of at its western end and at its eastern end. In 2008, the dimensions are given as x x .The Land of Israel; A Text-Book on the Physical and Historical Geography of the Holy Land Embodying the Results of Recent Research, Robert Laird Stewart, 2008. Page 214 Scholars have noted that a cistern at the bottom, below the lower end of a Mamilla pool, leads to a staircase that ends in a small room. There is a drainage pipe, measuring 53 cm in diameter at the exit of the pool and is later reduced to 23 cm, and which once allowed the flow of water into the city to be regulated.


Ecosystem

With the first rains, the pool hosts an ecosystem of crabs, frogs, and insects. During spring, it becomes a haven for migrating birds. In 1997, a previously unknown species of tree frog was discovered in the pool. The researchers named their find Hyla heinzsteinitzi, in honor of Heinz Steinitz, a deceased Israeli marine biologist. Hyla heinzsteinitzi is now a synonym for H. japonica and thought to have been introduced. As of 2007, the species is assumed to be extinct., 2007, A new, sibling, tree frog from Jerusalem (Amphibia: Anura: Hylidae), 41: 714.


References

* Jerusalem's water supply: from the 18th century BCE to the present, by Zvi Abells, Asher Arbit, 1993, p. 25 {{Authority control Reservoirs in Jerusalem Herod the Great Classical sites in Jerusalem Geography of Jerusalem Establishments in the Herodian kingdom Mamilla