'Archaeology in Jerusalem always provides surprises'

Mysterious ancient tunnel, possibly thousands of years old, discovered in Jerusalem

The dating and the purpose of the structure are still not clear, but archaeologists say its construction required significant resources and manpower

An ancient tunnel, whose purpose and dating are still cloaked in mystery, has been discovered near Kibbutz Ramat Rachel in Jerusalem, the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) said Thursday.

The tunnel, which extends about 50 meters (164 feet), was unearthed during a salvage excavation ahead of the construction of a new neighborhood in the area (all construction projects in Israel are required by law to include archaeological surveys).

“At the beginning, we thought it might just be a natural cave, but then we realized that it could not be the case,” IAA co-director of excavation Zinovi Matskevich told The Times of Israel over the telephone. “A huge investment of manpower and resources went into building this tunnel.”

The tunnel includes a staircase and an entrance.

“We were not able to excavate it completely,” Matskevich said. “Even for us, it would be a tremendous amount of work. However, we dug some test pits and found that, in some places, the ceiling is almost five meters high, which is huge. So we started to ask ourselves, when was it done, and for what purpose?”

At this stage, however, the archaeologists have not been able to determine either with a good degree of certainty.

“We did consider this possibility that it was a modern structure, [connected] to the complicated history of the 20th century,” Matskevich said. “This is not the case. There is a huge accumulation of material, many stages of accumulation, so it’s not modern.”

The tunnel was filled with debris that IAA experts estimate accumulated over hundreds, and possibly thousands, of years.

Asked whether any artifacts were found to help date the structure, Matskevich explained that they did come across pottery fragments and even prehistoric flint tools from the Neolithic period, but these were not connected to the construction of the tunnel itself.

At the same time, the area where the tunnel is located also includes other ancient structures that could be associated with it.

“Ramat Rachel is just half a kilometer west from our cave, and it was occupied from the Iron Age [1200-586 CE] until Islamic times [7th-11th centuries CE],” Matskevich said. “We see many ancient administrative buildings from both the Iron Age and Roman times that required a lot of stones, and our best guess is that the tunnel was actually a quarry.”

Some quarrying debris was found on the tunnel floor, and a shaft was carved into the tunnel ceiling, which might have been used for ventilation. These elements support the hypothesis that the tunnel was used for quarrying, possibly to reach a layer of soft chalkstone.

According to Matskevich, the tunnel was probably built at least 2,000 years ago, in Roman times, and likely even earlier, but they cannot be sure.

What is clear is that at some point, many people made a considerable effort to dig it, and therefore someone made a very conscious choice.

“Archeology in Jerusalem always provides surprises,” Matskevich said. “At the same time, I have been working in Jerusalem for more than 20 years, and I have never found anything as surprising and fascinating as this tunnel, providing us with so many questions.”