Hezekiah Inscription to return to Israel

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JERUSALEM — An ancient inscription memorializing Jer- usalem's salvation from Assyrian invaders 2,700 years ago is to be returned to the Holy Land from Turkey for study and public display.

Israel has been trying for about 20 years to recover the artifact, which marks one of the most important turning points in Hebrew history.

Assyrian forces under King Sennacherib controlled most of the Middle East in the early eighth century B.C. and were about to march on Jerusalem, where a defiant King Hezekiah ruled.

Anticipating a prolonged siege, Hezekiah ordered the construction of a tunnel connecting the city to the Gihon Spring outside its walls, ensuring a source of drinking water. The water collected inside the Judean capital at the Pool of Siloam, where centuries later Jesus is said in the Gospel of John to have cured a man who had been blind since birth.

An inscription inside the tunnel described the dramatic moment when stonecutters working from either end converged in the middle.

In 1880, a Jewish boy discovered the so-called Hezekiah Inscription, also known as the Siloam Inscription, engraved in ancient Hebrew letters in the tunnel's limestone wall.

"A segment of the tunnel wall's surface had been flattened and smoothed so that the inscription could be carved into the limestone," said Gabriel Barkay, a senior archaeology lecturer at the Bar-Ilan University.

Mr. Barkay said Conrad Schick, a German national who had been living in Jerusalem since 1846, publicized the find. He made a papier-mache likeness known as a gypsum plate copy and photographed the inscription.

The date of the inscription was determined on the basis of its contents and historical context.

A Greek antiquities dealer tried to remove it from the tunnel wall, but succeeded only in breaking it into several pieces.