Where They Met: Separations in the Rock Mass near the Siloam Tunnel's Meeting Point
Steven P. Lancaster, Guo Long · Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research · 1999
Two factors provide the impetus for this article. First, based on physical inspection, several scholars have claimed that features near the meeting point of the Siloam Tunnel do not support understanding a rock separation feature as a possible referent for the inscription's crux word, zdh. Second, a few recent articles have again focused on how the digging of the tunnel was accomplished. We believe that the role of karst phenomena as interconnecting for the whole length of the tunnel and perhaps being originally "large enough for a man to crawl through," suggested by Gill (1996), is overstated. Although Rosenberg (1998) affirms the use of preexisting karst phenomena at the northern and southern portions of the tunnel, we believe he has understated the role of these phenomena, particularly within 30 to 50 m of the meeting point. We present evidence to support the idea that the hewers were attempting to assist their task by following natural geological karst, crack, and joint features right up to their meeting point. These data have implications for understanding the inscription's meaning-elusive hapax legomenon, zdh.