Unearthing Secrets: Ancient Passageway Found Beneath Jerusalem's Tombs

Jerusalem, the holy city, needs to remain pure. It’s forbidden to keep a body there overnight, and certainly forbidden to bury one. According to Jewish law, if a grave is found in Jerusalem, regardless of whose it is, it must be removed.

The sages declared in the Tosefta (Baba Batra 1), "All graves are removed except for those of kings and prophets."

But Rabbi Akiva disagreed, arguing that even the graves of priests and prophets impart impurity, so why shouldn’t they be removed?

The sages responded to him: "Weren’t the graves of the House of David and Hulda the prophetess in Jerusalem, and no one ever touched them?" Apparently, this is the basis for not removing the graves of priests or prophets, derived from the fact that no one removed the graves of the House of David and Hulda.

Rabbi Akiva replied with an intriguing fact: "Is that evidence? There was a tunnel there that directed the impurity to the Kidron Valley."

Rabbi Akiva probably learned from his teachers that centuries before, a tunnel existed beneath these graves to channel the impurity away.

According to Jewish law, impurity in a completely enclosed space "breaks through" and rises to the heavens, making anything above it impure, even if it is an airplane. However, if there is an opening on the side, the impurity exits through the opening and does not "break through" the ceiling.

Professor Yoel Elitzur, in his article "Are These Really the Tombs of the House of David?", explains: Non-Jewish researchers ridiculed Rabbi Akiva's words. How could he know what happened centuries before him? One impudently suggested that Rabbi Akiva saw Hezekiah’s tunnel and mistook it for a tunnel used to expel impurity...

However, excavations in Jerusalem, near the eastern wall, actually document something resembling the tunnel Rabbi Akiva described.

"The caves are within the city, but very close to the eastern line of the wall... Anyone who wanted at the time to quickly direct impurity out of the city would need to construct a tunnel about 10 meters to the wall, directing the impurity to the Kidron Valley... There's tangible evidence in this area that possibly relates to a small hewn trench that ran from the graves to the wall line. With all the caution we must exercise at such a site, filled with later excavations, it’s possible that this is the tunnel Rabbi Akiva mentioned!"