Though the name derived from Arab traditions, this vast subterranean quarry (of the much prized meleke limestone) probably supplied the first stones for Solomon's temple, as well as Herod the Great's. Covered over during the early days of the Ottoman Empire, it was rediscovered accidentally in 1854.
Jewish traditions call it Zechariah's Grotto, suggesting that it was through this undergroun cavern that King Zedekiah and his entourage managed to slip past the Babylonian siege to escape to Jericho:
Then the city wall was broken through, and the whole army fled at night through the gate between the two walls near the king's garden, though the Babylonians were surrounding the city. They fled towards the Arabah, but the Babylonian army pursued the king and overtook him in the plains of Jericho. All his soldiers were separated from him and scattered, and he was captured. He was taken to the king of Babylon at Riblah, where sentence was pronounced on him. (2 Ki 25:4-6)
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