Well

Overview

The well was dug outside the city gate and its fortification system and likely provided Beersheba’s daily water supply. While the city has an impressive water system, its network of channels could only be refilled during seasonal floods, thus using the water system for daily use could have left the city without water during a siege. It may seem odd that the well is located at outside of the city’s fortifications and at such a high elevation. Had they dug closer to the riverbed, the builders would not have had to dig so deep; however, this one-time investment of labor, which probably took between 45–75 days to complete, saved Beersheba’s residents the daily effort of carrying water uphill. Furthermore, building the well outside of the city’s fortifications meant that it could be also used by visitors and passersby. The city served as an administrative center, so large numbers of traders and military personnel traveled to and from the city, and because most of them would have camped outside the city, the well provided them a convenient water source as well.

The well was either built during Stratum VII, or alongside the Stratum V city. The excavators cannot be certain when it was built because the well does not cut into any previous structures, nor was anything built over it. Later Hellenistic repairs also make it difficult to date. The excavators found wood and stones at the bottom of the well—likely the remains of some sort of device to draw water out of the well. The large amount of wood suggests that a structure had been built to cover the well. It is likely the device was constructed for the use of animals to draw the water and spill it into a nearby trough. The Israeli Parks Authority has reconstructed what the trough and structure may have looked like.