While arresting a gang of thieves in Jerusalem, the Israel Antiquities Authority’s (iaa) Theft Prevention Unit uncovered a unique stone vessel factory dating to the Second Temple Period.
The archaeological site of Ras Tamim, located on the eastern slope of Mount Scopus, was being monitored due to suspected illegal activity.
The iaa explained that “five suspects were arrested late at night while in possession of excavation equipment, including a generator, excavating tools and a metal detector.”
This arrest led to a more extensive survey of the area. “We were shocked because in one of the caves that [the looters] excavated, we found more than 100 pieces of stone vessels from the Second Temple Period,” Eitan Klein, deputy director of the Theft Prevention Unit, told the Times of Israel. “Only Jews used those tools to observe the purity laws.” Stone vessels were considered more pure than clay vessels and were therefore commonly used by Jews during the Second Temple Period.
“The discovery of this workshop, alongside huge water reservoirs and a purification bath (mikveh) from the Second Temple Period, testifies to the centrality of this site some 2,000 years ago, as it was located on the main road that Jewish pilgrims used when coming to Jerusalem from the east,” the researchers explained.
The site had access to local limestone, which is soft and easy to shape into vessels. This is not the first stone quarry discovered in Jerusalem. (You can read about the largest Second Temple quarry from Jerusalem here.) But, now that this stone factory has been revealed, it is expected that proper excavations will take place at the cave.
We will never truly know, however, what the looters may have destroyed or taken from the cave. Head of the iaa Theft Prevention Unit, Dr. Amit Ganor, explained the impact looters have on antiquity: “We often never knew what they found and took out, and antiquities in the soil are not a renewable resource. It’s lost forever, for the rest of the world.”
A new exhibition titled “Criminal Past” detailing the world of antiquities looting in Israel is currently displaying the stone vessels at the Jay and Jeanie Schottenstein National Campus for the Archaeology of Israel in Jerusalem.
