Tunnel
Antiquity and early middle ages

Predecessors of modern tunnels were adits that transported water for irrigation, drinking, or sewerage. The first qanats are known from before 2000 BC.

The earliest tunnel known to have been excavated from both ends is the Siloam Tunnel, built in Jerusalem by the kings of Judah around the 8th century BC. Another tunnel excavated from both ends, maybe the second known, is the Tunnel of Eupalinos, which is a tunnel aqueduct 1,036 m (3,400 ft) long running through Mount Kastro in Samos, Greece. It was built in the 6th century BC to serve as an aqueduct.

In Ethiopia, the Siqurto foot tunnel, hand-hewn in the Middle Ages, crosses a mountain ridge.

In the Gaza Strip, the network of tunnels was used by Jewish strategists as rock-cut shelters, in first links to Judean resistance against Roman rule in the Bar Kokhba revolt during the 2nd century AD.
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