On the outskirts of Jerusalem (above), archaeologists have
discovered the remains of a 2,300-year-old rural village that dates back to the
Second Temple period, the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) announced.
Trenches covering some 8,000 square feet (750 square
meters) revealed narrow alleys and a few single-family stone houses, each
containing several rooms and an open courtyard.
Among the ruins, archaeologists
also found dozens of coins, cooking pots, milling tools and jars for storing
oil and wine.
"The rooms generally served as residential and
storage rooms, while domestic tasks were carried out in the courtyards,"
Irina Zilberbod, the excavation director for the IAA, explained in a statement.
Archaeologists don't know what the town would have
been called in ancient times, but it sits near the legendary Burma Road, a
route that allowed supplies and food to flow into Jerusalem during the 1948
Arab-Israeli War.
The Second Temple period (538 B.C. to A.D. 70) refers
to the lifetime of the Jewish temple that was built on Jerusalem's Temple Mount
to replace the First Temple after it was destroyed.
Archaeological evidence
suggests this provincial village hit its peak during the third century B.C.,
when Judea was under the control of the Seleucid monarchy after the breakup of
Alexander the Great's empire.
"The phenomenon of villages and farms being
abandoned at the end of the Hasmonean dynasty or the beginning of Herod the
Great's succeeding rule is one that we are familiar with from many rural sites
in Judea," archaeologist Yuval Baruch explained in a statement.
"And it
may be related to Herod's massive building projects in Jerusalem, particularly
the construction of the Temple Mount, and the mass migration of villagers to
the capital to work on these projects."
No comments:
Post a Comment