A Large Second Temple Period Stone Vessel Production Facility Found in Jerusalem

^{Photo: Yoli Schwartz, Israel Antiquities Authority.}

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“The discovery of this workshop – alongside huge water reservoirs and a purification bath (mikve) from the Second Temple period – testifies to the centrality of this site 2,000 years ago, located on the main road Jewish pilgrims used when coming to Jerusalem from the east” say the researchers.

A large stone tool workshop from the Second Temple period, which produced tools for Jews some 2,000 years ago, was uncovered in a cave on the eastern slopes of Mount Scopus in Jerusalem. In the underground cave housing this workshop were hundreds of stone vessel fragments, production waste, and unfinished items. This striking discovery is an unexpected byproduct of an undercover surveillance and capture operation targeting an organized gang of antiquities robbers, carried out by the Israel Antiquities Authority Theft Prevention Unit.

After the suspects were captured, Israel Antiquities Authority inspectors searched the cave and to their amazement, they discovered hundreds of unique stone vessel fragments.

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“Workshops for producing chalk limestone vessels from the Second Temple period are already known in the Judean hills,” says Dr. Eitan Klein, Deputy Director of the Theft Prevention Unit at the Israel Antiquities Authority.

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Two other workshops have been discovered, one just north of today’s Jerusalem, in the village of Hizma, and another also in the Mount Scopus area.

The discovery of this workshop, however, is particularly important, because now a broad picture of the region is emerging: In addition to these production workshops, a host of other finds dating back to the days of the Second Temple were discovered – tombs, large water reservoirs, a purification bath (mikveh), and a limestone quarry.”

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The discovery of the workshop reinforces the assessment that this was an important and central site located on the main ancient road used by Jewish pilgrims coming to Jerusalem from the east – the Jordan Valley and Jericho area, from communities in TransJordan and from all around the Dead Sea region. It seems that the vessels produced here were marketed in the streets of Jerusalem to both the city's residents and to visitors making a pilgrimage during the Second Temple period.

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The production and use of stone vessels, based on archaeological finds and their contexts, were unique to the Jewish population during the later Second Temple period and its aftermath, especially in the Jerusalem and Judea area, but also elsewhere.

Ancient sources describe a revolution in the field of purity and impurity during this period, in which there was widespread strictness in the laws of impurity and purity that affected every person – this is seemingly in contrast to earlier periods, in which scholars assume purity mainly affected the priests and those serving in the sanctuary in the Temple service.

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Rabbinic sources apparently described this phenomenon with the expression, “an outbreak of purity in Israel” (Tosefta Shabbat 1:7). During this period, archaeology has found that purification mikvehs began to be installed in private homes, in villages and towns in the countryside, alongside large purification mikvahs in the city of Jerusalem, near and around the Temple environs, and along the roads leading up to Jerusalem.

According to the Minister of Heritage, Rabbi Amichai Eliyahu, “The stone-vessel workshop uncovered in Jerusalem is not merely an archaeological site, but a window into a world preserved deep within the ground, waiting for us. Two thousand years ago, Jews ascended to Jerusalem from Jericho, Transjordan, and the Dead Sea region, and the stone vessels produced here accompanied them on their way to the Temple. Now, as the earth returns what it safeguarded for us, we are obliged to give back – to protect every root, every vessel, every layer. Attempts by our enemies to loot antiquities are not crimes of financial theft, but efforts to steal our identity. We will not allow this, and will continue to act decisively to preserve and safeguard what has always been ours, and always will be.”

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