Siloam Tunnel Inscription
Siloam Tunnel Inscription, late eighth century B.C.E. Incised stone, Istanbul Archaeological Museum.
The Siloam Tunnel Inscription details the construction of the tunnel that Hezekiah built in the late eighth century
B.C.E to supply water from outside the city walls of Jerusalem in the event of Sennacherib’s siege in 701 BCE. The text is written in the
Hebrew language using the
Old Hebrew script
Before the Common Era; a notation used in place of B.C. ("before Christ") for years before the current calendar era.
A West Semitic language, in which most of the Hebrew Bible is written except for parts of Daniel and Ezra. Hebrew is regarded as the spoken language of ancient Israel but is largely replaced by Aramaic in the Persian period.
The earliest attested stage of the Hebrew language, which largely comes from inscriptional evidence from the early Iron Age.
