This page is subject to the extended confirmed restriction related to the Arab-Israeli conflict.Solomon's Pools (Arabic: برك سليمان, romanized: Burak Sulaymān, or in short el-Burak, 'the pools'; Hebrew: בריכות שלמה, romanized: Breichot Shlomo) are three ancient reservoirs located in the south-central West Bank, immediately to the south of al-Khader, about 3.5 kilometres (2.2 mi) southwest of Bethlehem, near the road to Hebron.

Josephus wrote that Solomon enjoyed the beauty of the water-rich "Etham" (one of the main springs is called Ein Eitam = Hebrew: עין עיטם).

[13][14][15] French explorer Victor Guérin who visited the site in the late 19th-century described the source of the pools and their surrounding villages in Description de la Palestine.

By way of an aqueduct, the water first flowed to Bethlehem, passed through an underground channel, and finally reached the Temple Mount area of Jerusalem.

[19] It served as barracks for the Turkish soldiers guarding the Pools of Solomon and the commercial caravans between Jerusalem and Hebron, as well as a staging post on the local hajj route to Mecca.

After being allowed to decay since the middle of the 19th century, the ruined fortress has been largely rebuilt and developed as part of a new tourist complex.

[9] The construction date of the upper (westernmost) two pools is uncertain but was probably started during the Hasmonean period, between mid-second and mid-first century BC and completed by Herod the Great in connection with his rebuilding program of the Second Temple.

[5][6] The aqueduct began at the lower pool and, after traveling to Jerusalem, climbed a bridge over the Tyropoeon Valley to reach the Temple Mount platform, where it ended inside the cisterns hidden underneath its surface.

[4] On the surface of the aqueduct, archeologists discovered two prutah coins - one was minted by Alexander Jannaeus and the other one by Herod - along with a fragment of a roof tile bearing a stamped impression of Legio X Fretensis.

[24] This aqueduct, which brought water to Jerusalem, was paid for by Pontius Pilate at the expense of the Temple treasury, which act in itself incited the anger of the local people.

[1] Between 1480 and 1484 Felix Fabri visited, and noted that beside the middle pool there were: "pavilions and tents, wherein dwelt the architects, clerks of the works, overseers, and masters, who there arranged how the watercourses should be dug through the mountains.

[9] Major repairs to the water system were done by the 10th Roman Legion, Legio Fretensis during the second century CE, later by the Mamluks, the Ottomans and the British.

In 1902 for instance, a new 16 km pipeline to Jerusalem was inaugurated to mark the 60th birthday of the Ottoman sultan Abdul Hamid II.

As a result, complaints were filed against the ministry of Awqaf, the site's owner, and the Solomon's Pools Tourism Agency, the operating company.

The Murad Castle, an Ottoman fort at the park's northern gate, has been transformed into a tourist attraction that also includes an ethnographic and history museum and a restaurant with a garden area.