page_title: Struthion Pool
section_title: Discovery and excavations
hierarchical_section_title: Struthion Pool / Discovery and excavations
caption_attribution_description: English: Jerusalem, Western wall tunnel, Ancient cistern Deutsch: Jerusalem, Westmauertunnel, Zisterne am Ende des Tunnels
context_page_description: The Struthion Pool, effectually translated from the Greek as 'Sparrow Pool' is a large cuboid cistern beneath the Convent of the Sisters of Zion in the Old City of Jerusalem, built by Herod the Great in the first century BCE.
context_section_description: The pool had remained in use down to modern times, but was identified as the Struthion by British engineer Sir Charles Warren during his exploration of Jerusalem between 1867 and 1870. His discovery of a tunnel running along the Western Wall to the vicinity of the pool prompted the Convent of the Sisters of Zion to seal off a part of the pool. An east-west wall now divides the Struthion pool into two parts, preventing access between them; one side is visible from the western wall tunnels, the other area is accessible from the Convent.
  As a result of 1971 extensions to the original Western Wall Tunnel, the Hasmonean water system became linked to the end of the Western Wall Tunnel. Running under Arab housing, the two were later opened as a tourist attraction. The attraction has a linear route, starting at the Western Wall Plaza, passing through the modern tunnels, then the ancient water system, and ending at the Struthion Pool. As the Sisters of Zion were not willing to allow tourists to exit into the Convent via the pool, tourists had to return through the narrow tunnels to their starting point, creating minor logistical issues. Digging an alternative exit from the tunnel was proposed, but initially rejected on the grounds that any exit would be seen as an attempt by the Jewish authorities to stake a claim to ownership of the nearby land—part of the Muslim Quarter of the city.
  In 1996 Benjamin Netanyahu authorized the opening of an exit into the Via Dolorosa, underneath the Ummariya madrasah. Over the subsequent few weeks, 80 people were killed as a result of riots against the creation of the exit.
caption: View of an arch connecting the two chambers of the pool
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