Mary's Well, Nazareth

Mary's Well, also known as "The spring of the Virgin Mary," is a revered site associated with a Christian tradition linked to the apocryphal Gospel of James. According to this tradition, Mary, the mother of Jesus, received the announcement from Archangel Gabriel at this location, an event known as the Annunciation. The well has historical and religious significance and has been associated with narratives from the Infancy Gospel of Thomas.

Located just below the Greek Orthodox Church of Saint Gabriel, Mary's Well holds a central place in Christian heritage. For centuries, the well was fed by an aqueduct connected to a spring and served as a local watering hole for Palestinian villagers. The well has undergone two reconstructions in the 20th century, in 1967 and 2000, with the current structure symbolically representing the original.

There are multiple sites popularly known as Mary's Well, including the spring beneath the Greek Orthodox Church of the Annunciation, the well structure in the plaza south of it, and a presumed spring beneath the Basilica of the Annunciation. This article primarily focuses on the well structure in the plaza, which has been dry since the 1990s. Once located outside the urban center of Nazareth, Mary's Well was a popular square and meeting place for the Palestinian community until the Nakba and has since become a symbol of the city.