[1] Found just below the Greek Orthodox Church of St Gabriel in modern-day Nazareth, dedicated to the Annunciation, the well was until recently fed by an aqueduct connected to a spring, and served for centuries as a local watering hole for the Palestinian villagers.
The earliest written source[dubious – discuss] mentioning to a well or spring being the site of the Annunciation comes from the Protoevangelium of James, a non-canonical gospel dating to the 2nd century.
Excavations by Yardenna Alexandre and Butrus Hanna of the Israel Antiquities Authority in 1997-98, sponsored by the Nazareth Municipality and the Government Tourist Corporation, discovered a series of underground water systems and suggested that the site today known as Mary's Well served as Nazareth's main water supply from as early as Byzantine times.
[11][12] William Rae Wilson 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).
[ ] 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"[15]