A favorite story in the New Testament is when Jesus taught the Samaritan woman at the well.
There are many remarkable things about this story--Jesus was called to teach the Jews, yet He taught this woman and through her, her entire village was converted. Jesus knew everything about the woman, and when she humbled herself, Jesus gave her the greatest of gifts. These messages are true and right, but what about that well?
Here are some portrayals in religious art:
These renderings are all wrong. First of all buckets. Metal buckets. Secondly, the structures around the well.
Wells in the ancient Holy Land were natural limestone spaces that filled with rainwater or spring water. They would be enhanced by carving stairs in the stone along the sides of the hole. Women would carry sacs made of animal skins or pottery urns down these (slippery) stairs to fetch water from the bottom of the well. It was a lot of hard work and could even be dangerous. Here are a few pictures of ancient wells (that have had two thousand years in which people could add stairs or other structures):
