Siloam inscription
The Siloam inscription or Shiloah inscription (כתובת השילוח, or Silwan inscription), known as KAI 189, is a Hebrew inscription found in the Siloam tunnel which brings water from the Gihon Spring to the Pool of Siloam, located in the City of David in East Jerusalem neighborhood of Shiloah or Silwan. The inscription records the construction of the tunnel, which has been dated to the 8th century BC on the basis of the writing style. It is the only known ancient inscription from ancient Israel and Judah which commemorates a public construction work, despite such inscriptions being commonplace in Egyptian and Mesopotamian archaeology. It is among the oldest extant records of its kind written in Hebrew using the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet, a regional variant of the Phoenician alphabet. The inscription is held by the Istanbul Archaeology Museum. Turkey has denied Israel's requests to be sent the inscription, on the basis that it was found in what is today East Jerusalem, which is considered occupied Palestinian territory under international law by the vast majority of the international community, though Israel disputes this. The Siloam tunnel was discovered in 1838 by Edward Robinson. Despite the tunnel being examined extensively during the 19th century by Robinson, Charles Wilson, and Charles Warren, they all missed discovering the inscription, probably due to the accumulated mineral deposits making it barely noticeable. In 1880 a 16-year-old pupil of Conrad Schick, head of the London Society for Promoting Christianity Amongst the Jews' institute for vocational training, found the inscription when exploring the tunnel. It was cut in the rock on the eastern side, about 19 feet into the tunnel from Siloam Pool. Schick explained in his initial publication Phoenician Inscription in the Pool of Siloam: one of my pupils, when climbing down the southern side of [the aqueduct], stumbled over the broken bits of rock and fell into the water. On rising to the surface, he discovered some marks like letters on the wall of rock.
