The Sebil of Hagai Street

A public water facility was built under the order of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, with decorations from the Middle Ages. The lower part is apparently a “sarcophagus”, a Roman burial coffin, made of stone and decorated, and combined with the Ottoman sebil. Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent built six sebils throughout Jerusalem in 1537. Five of them were built within the old city, and one outside of it, in the southern wall of the Sultan’s Bath. During the era of this sultan, the Ottoman Empire thrived and flourished. The sultan did much to develop Jerusalem, renovated its water supply system, and built the sebils for the benefit of the city’s residents. The sebils were meant to provide water for the daily needs as well as the purification customs of the believers, and they were beautiful architectural items in the alleys of old Jerusalem. Private sebils were built in residential houses throughout the old city, as well as in education and religious institutions. Most of the sebils were connected to the lower aqueduct from the times of the Second Temple, which supplied water from Solomon’s Pools to the pools in the Temple Mount, and to channels that split from it. The sultan renovated the ancient aqueduct in order to fill the water pools in the Temple Mount. A channel was attached to the aqueduct, named “The Sebil Aqueduct” (Kanet El Sebil), and it filled the sebils. Storage containers were built for most of the sebils, filled by the Sebil Aqueduct, and attached to the back of the sebils.