Remember how Jesus told the blind man, after putting softened clay on his eyes, " Go wash in the pool of Siloam."? The did what Jesus says, the Bible account at John 9: 6,7 says, and came back seeing.
But, did this pool actually exist? Many tourists in modern times have bathed in a pool found at the end of the 530-metre-long tunnel King Hezekiah constructed at the end of the eighth century B.C.E.
It was later discovered that the pool found here was built by Byzantine Christians in the fourth century C.E. long after Jesus' time. Apparently they thought the original Pool of Siloam would have been at the end of this tunnel and so decided to reconstruct the pool there.
The true Pool of Siloam has been discovered, however. In 2004, archaeologists found the remains of another pool 100 meters southeast of the Byzantine pool and concluded that this was actually the site of the original Pool of Siloam.
This was discovered accidentally by an alert archaeologist watching workers repair a sewer main. When the work was halted an archaeological team went in and discovered the pool of 70 meters long.
It had fallen into disuse after the Romans destroyed Jerusalem in 70 C.E. and had gradually filled in with mud washed down the nearby v alley during winter storms.
The archaeological discovery proves the accuracy of the Gospel account of Jesus restoring the eyesight of the blind man.
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