Mary’s Well
Exploring Mary's Well
This site is always part of our live Octagon Tour.
Location - Nazareth
Map Coordinates - 32.706104, 35.301320
Mary’s Well is a very prominent landmark in the city, and certainly the name Mary’s Well would suggest that it has the reputation as being the place from which Mary and the other townspeople drew their water.
There was probably not a well here in the first century, and the traditional location from which Mary actually drew her water was about 500 feet uphill, in the Church of Saint Gabriel. In this church there is a spring, believed to be the one that Mary visited on the day that she received a message from the Archangel Gabriel, that she would be the mother of the Christ Child.
This well was probably built sometime around the fifth century, when the Church of Saint Gabriel uphill covered up the spring, forcing the townspeople to start drawing their water from this place instead.
Underneath this well, and throughout this entire area archeologists have discovered subterranean structures dating back to the Byzantine and even Roman times, indicating that this part of the city was densely populated. We also know that Mary’s traditional home was downhill from here, a little more than a quarter mile, and in those days, since the rich people of any town generally lived in the upper city, this implies that Jesus’ family was not wealthy.
Mary’s Well