A dramatic discovery tied to biblical history has emerged after Israeli authorities uncovered a temple workshop found during a sting operation near Jerusalem. What began as an effort to stop antiquities thieves led to the discovery of a 2,000-year-old stone vessel workshop dating to the Second Temple period — the era in which Jesus lived and preached in Jerusalem.
The Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) announced Feb. 16 that officials tracked suspects to an underground cave on Mount Scopus. The five individuals were caught with quarry tools and a metal detector and later confessed. “They will soon be indicted both for damage to and for illegal excavation of an antiquities site — offenses punishable by law, for which the proscribed penalty is up to five years in prison,” the IAA stated.
Inside the cave, authorities found “hundreds of stone vessel fragments, production waste and unfinished items.” The release added, “To their amazement, they discovered hundreds of unique stone vessel fragments.” Archaeologists believe the site once operated along a major pilgrimage road used by Jewish travelers heading to Jerusalem from the Jordan Valley, Jericho and 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,” the IAA said. Officials noted that stone vessel production was “unique to the Jewish population,” reflecting strict purity laws of the time.
Eitan Klein said, “This was probably an industrial-scale workshop that produced vessels for the large Jewish population and pilgrims who arrived in Jerusalem in those days.” Israeli Minister of Heritage Amichai Eliyahu called the site “not merely an archaeological site, but a window into a world preserved deep within the ground, waiting for us.”
