Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem 

Mary's Well

 Site HOME PAGE    updated   12/05/19   

 
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Mary’s Well is reputed to be located at the site where, according to the Catholic tradition, Angel Gabriel appeared to Mary, mother of Jesus and announced that she would bear the Son of God – an event known as the Annunciation.
 
An underground spring in Nazareth traditionally served as the city’s main water source for several centuries, possibly millennia; however, it was not always referred to as "Mary's well" or "Mary's spring". In his book, The Bible as History, Werner Keller writes that "Mary's Well" or "Ain Maryam", as the locals called it, had been so named since "time immemorial" and that it provided the only water supply in the area. William Rae Wilson also describes "a well of the Virgin, which supplied the inhabitants of Nazareth with water" in his book, Travels in Egypt and the Holy Land (1824).

James Finn, then British Consul in Jerusalem, visited Nazareth in late June 1853 and his company pitched their tents near the fountain, - the only fountain there. He writes that "the water at this spring was very deficient this summer season, yielding only a petty trickling to the anxious inhabitants. All night long the women were there with their jars, chattering, laughing, or scolding in competition for their turns.  It suggested a strange current of ideas to overhear pert damsels using the name of Miriam (Mary), in jest and laughter at the fountain of Nazareth"

While the current structure referred to as Mary's Well is a non-functional reconstruction inaugurated as part of the Nazareth 2000 celebrations, the traditional Mary's Well was a local watering hole, with an overground stone structure. Through the centuries, villagers would gather here to fill water pitchers (up until 1966) or otherwise congregate to relax and exchange news. At another area not too far off, which tapped into the same water source, shepherds and others with domesticated animals would bring their herds to drink.

The Greek Orthodox Church of the Annunciation, located a little further up the hill from the current site of Mary's Well, is a Byzantine era church built over the spring in the 3rd century, based on the belief that the Annunciation took place at the site.

An aged photograph of Mary's Well surrounded by a group of people and two camels.

Fountain of the Virgin, Nazareth, 1891

Women at Fountain of the Virgin, Nazareth, 1891

Old postcard of Mary's Well.

Postcard of Mary's Well, by Karimeh Abbud, ca 1925
 
         Basilica of the Annunciation