Known locally as Biyar Daoud (David’s Cisterns or Well), these three great cisterns are excavated in the rock and are nowadays located within the Catholic Action Club premises. Tradition identifies them with “the cistern that is in Bethlehem at the gate” from which David longed to drink during a battle with the Philistines (2 Sam. 23:15).

In 1895, a mosaic pavement of a church of the fifth or sixth century with Greek inscriptions was discovered to the east of these cisterns. Later excavations brought to light many fourth century potsherds and fourth to sixth century wall inscriptions. The most meaningful graffito is a fourth century Constantine cross engraved in the rock at the cemetery entrance, thus affirming that the burial-ground was Christian. King David’s Wells are situated at the entrance to the old main road of Bethlehem, and the Patriarch’s Route.