Mamilla Pool

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Ancient reservoir in Jerusalem

title: "Mamilla Pool" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["reservoirs-in-jerusalem", "herod-the-great", "classical-sites-in-jerusalem", "geography-of-jerusalem", "establishments-in-the-herodian-kingdom", "mamilla"] description: "Ancient reservoir in Jerusalem" topic_path: "geography" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mamilla_Pool" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Ancient reservoir in Jerusalem ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox ancient site"]

Field	Value
name	Mamilla Pool
native_name	بركة ماملا
native_name_lang	ar
alternate_name	Birket Mamilla
image	Jerusalem - Birket-Mamillah LACMA M.2008.40.1758.jpg
image_size	300px
caption	Mamilla pool in Jerusalem (1854), showing the adjacent Mamilla Cemetery
coordinates
location	Jerusalem
type	Ancient reservoir
length	316 ft (96 m)
width	218 ft (66 m)
height	19 ft (5.8 m)
material	Stone, cement
built	Unknown (possibly Herodian or Byzantine period)
public_access	Yes
::

Mamilla Pool (also known as Birket Mamilla) is one of several ancient reservoirs that supplied water to the inhabitants of Jerusalem. It is located outside the walls of the Old City about 650 m 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 and Abel, the name of the pool may be derived from a Byzantine-period woman, Mamilla being a Latin female name, possibly abbreviated from Maximilla. 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.

History

The pool's original date of construction is unknown. and entraps the runoff waters of the upper watercourse of the Hinnom valley. Others have speculated that it may have been the Serpent's Pool mentioned by Josephus.

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 (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 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 required that the Arab ruler Umar 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: ::quote

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 Jerusalem municipality temporarily tried to connect the pool to the Jerusalem water supply, and coated the pool with cement. Eventually, the pool fell into disuse. ::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8b/Staircase_leading_to_Mamilla_pool.jpg" caption="A staircase descends into the now empty Mamilla pool"] ::

Dimensions

The pool's dimensions as recorded by Edward Robinson in the mid-19th century give a depth of 18 ft, a length of 316 ft, and a width of 200 ft at its western end and 218 ft at its eastern end. In 2008, the dimensions are given as 291 ft x 192 ft x 19 ft. 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.

References

Jerusalem's water supply: from the 18th century BCE to the present, by Zvi Abells, Asher Arbit, 1993, p. 25

References

Avraham Negev, Shimon Gibson. (2005). "Archaeological encyclopedia of the Holy Land". Continuum International Publishing Group.
Robert Walter Stewart. (1857). "The tent and the khan: A journey to Sinai and Palestine". Oliphant, Hamilton, Adams.
Asem Khalidi. (Spring 2009). "The Mamilla Cemetery: A Buried History". [[Jerusalem Quarterly]].
Jerome Murphy-O'Connor. (2008). "The Holy Land: an Oxford archaeological guide from earliest times to 1700". Oxford University Press.
Wilke Schram. (2013). "Pools of Jerusalem". Roman Aqueducts.
(November 5, 2020). "The Enigma of the High-Level Aqueduct to Jerusalem and the Mamilla Water System". Tel Aviv Journal.
A history of Jerusalem, John Gray, Praeger, 1969, p. 49
[[Denys Pringle. (1993). "Cemetery Chapel of St Mamilla (No. 330)". [[Cambridge University Press]].
[[Louis-Hugues Vincent. (1922). "Sainte-Mamilla". Librairie Victor Lecoffre.
[[George Williams (clergyman). (1849). "The Holy city: Historical, topographical, and antiquarian notices of Jerusalem, Volume 1". J. W. Parker.
(1841). "Biblical Researches in Palestine, Mount Sinai and Arabia Petraea: A Journal of Travels in the Year 1838". Crocker & Brewster.
(1988). "Charles Wilson - Jerusalem the Holy City (צ'רלס וילסון - ירושלים העיר הקדושה)". Ariel.
(1988). "Charles Wilson - Jerusalem the Holy City (צ'רלס וילסון - ירושלים העיר הקדושה)". Ariel.
Bromiley, Geoffrey W.. (1982). "International Standard Bible Encyclopedia: E-J". [[Eerdmans]].
Schwiki, Itzik. (February 8, 2005). "The Total Experience from Dismantling and Rebuilding Teaches that This is a Highly Dubious Way of Preservation". 02net.
Idinopulos, Thomas A. (1991). ''Jerusalem blessed, Jerusalem cursed: Jews, Christians, and Muslims in the Holy City from David's time to our own''. [[I.R. Dee]], Chicago, p. 152.
[[Elliott Horowitz. Horowitz, Elliott S.]] (2006). ''Reckless Rites: Purim and the Legacy of Jewish Violence''. p. 229.
(2 March 2006). "Massacre at Mamilla". Jerusalem Post.
Pierotti, Ermete. (1864b). "Customs and traditions of Palestine: illustrating the manners of the ancient Hebrew". Deighton, Bell, & Co..
Illustrations of Scripture: suggested by a tour through the Holy Land By Horatio Balch Hackett, Heath & Graves, 1856, p. 269
[http://tourism.gov.il/Tourism_Euk/Articles/Attractions/Hidden+Treasures+in+Jerusalem.htm Hidden Treasures in Jerusalem] {{Webarchive. link. (2017-01-06, the Jerusalem Tourism Authority)
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
Gvoždík, V., Moravec, J., Klütsch, C., Kotlík, P. (2010) Phylogeography of the Middle Eastern tree frogs (Hyla, Hylidae, Amphibia) as inferred from nuclear and mitochondrial DNA variation, with a description of a new species. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 55: 1146-1166.
[https://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/who-s-to-blame-for-disappearance-of-a-new-species-of-amphibian-1.227731 Who's to blame for disappearance of a new species of amphibian?], By Ofri Ilani, Haaretz, 2007
{{aut. Grach, Plesser, and Werner, 2007, A new, sibling, tree frog from Jerusalem (Amphibia: Anura: Hylidae), 41: 714.

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