Misplaced 2,000-year-old ring unearthed in Jerusalem’s City of David

Some 2,000 years ago, a Jewish penitent misplaced a bronze ring during his climb of a 600-meter-long (about 2,000 feet) pilgrims’ thoroughfare leading to the Temple Mount.

While the recently recovered ring is today heavily corroded, its central blue semi-precious stone still sparkles.

The ring was recently discovered at the City of David’s Sifting Project in Emek HaTsurim, in a bucket of dirt excavated from a structure on the side of the broad 7.5-meter (24-feet) -a wide road that is thought to have housed a ritual bath, or mikveh. 

According to the City of David archaeologists, the worshiper likely lost the ring when fresh from ritual purification prior to his ascent to the Temple Mount.

For the past seven years at the City of David National Park in Jerusalem, archaeologists have been excavating a now-subterranean stairway that once served as a main artery to the Temple Mount, beginning at the intersection of the Kidron and Ben Hinnom Valleys.

“Every step on this street brought the pilgrims closer to the Temple,” said City of David archaeologist Nahshon Szanton, in a recent video tour of the site.

“Imagine to yourselves the joy, the songs, the prayers, the spiritual journey that these people experience when they know they are just meters away from reaching the gates of the Temple,” he added while climbing the monumental staircase.

The pilgrims’ road, which ascends from the Pool of Siloam to the Jewish Temple, dates to no earlier than 30-31 CE, during the time of the notorious Roman governor Pontius Pilate. In the short video, Szanton emphasized that this was the period when Jesus was sentenced to death.

According to the City of David, the Herodian road was lined with shops and businesses to serve the thousands of pilgrims to Jerusalem on the major holidays.

The broad road is a monumental achievement: Szanton estimates that some 10,000 tons of quarried rock were used in its construction.

The road was built above a complex drainage system, which rebels hid in 40 years after the Pilgrims’ Path’s construction as the Second Temple was destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE.

The drainage channel “was essentially a manmade tunnel,” according to the City of David, and was built underneath the Herodian Road. Its ceiling is made of the rectangular paving stones of the pilgrim’s road above.

The ring is perhaps a testament to a final period of peace, in which pilgrims could still safely climb the path to the Temple Mount and freely worship.

In a statement released by the City of David, archaeologists Szanton, Moran Hajbi, Ari Levy, and Dr. Joe Uziel said, “Just like today, it would appear that in the past, rings and jewelry were removed before bathing, and sometimes forgotten. This phenomenon, perhaps, is behind the discovery of the ring in what appears to be a ritual bath.”

The ring is a very human reminder of the people who ascended the path prior to the temple’s destruction, said the archaeologists.

“This ring allows us to personally connect with an individual’s personal story from 2,000 years ago. The ring, along with other finds, can shed light and expose the lives of people during the Second Temple period,” they said.

Scientists find that tin found in Israel from 3,000 years ago comes from Cornwall, England.

Scientists have revealed tin ingots from more than 3,000 years ago found in Israel. They have established that ancient tin ingots found in Israel actually came from what is now modern-day Britain.

Archaeologists believe it shows that tin was transported over long distances about 3000 years ago. Moreover, the researchers may have solved the mystery of the origin of the tin that was so vital for Bronze Age cultures.

The origins of Bronze-age tin ingots have been investigated by researchers from the University of Heidelberg and the Curt Engelhorn Center for Archaeometry in Mannheim. Tin ingots from the Bronze Age discovered by marine archaeologists off the coast of Israel.

According to Phys.org, the researchers used “lead and tin isotope data as well as trace element analysis” to identify where the metal was originally mined. What they found was totally unexpected.

The researchers established that the “3,000-year-old tin ingots found in Israel are actually from Cornwall and Devon” reports the Daily Mail.

These areas are in southwest Britain and were the sites of tin mines until modern times. The experts then analyzed tin ingots that were found in Greece and Turkey and they discovered that they had also come from Devon and Cornwall.

Based on the findings it seems that the tin was formed into ingots and exported from Devon and Cornwall. Given the limited technology at the time and the lack of roads, the most plausible way for the ingots to have reached modern-day Israel was by sea.

It seems that “the British Isles had developed maritime trade routes with the rest of the world as early as the Bronze Age ” according to the Daily Mail. These trade routes were probably very complex and covered great distances.

Tin was essential for societies in the eastern Mediterranean and there would have been a great demand for high-quality tin, and this would have encouraged the development of international trade routes. This could have led mariners to travel great distances to secure the metal.

The trade-in tin ingots were probably very dangerous but also very profitable. Other materials that were likely traded along these international trade networks were amber, copper, and luxury items. The fact that Bronze Age merchants could trade over vast distances shows that they were proficient sailors.

The findings of the research are very important and allow us to have new insights into the trade in the distant past. It identifies for the first time the origin of the tin, that was so important in the Bronze Age.

It strongly indicates that international trade was much more advanced, 3,000 years ago, than widely supposed. The results could also guide archaeological research in the future.

Prehistoric humans ate bone marrow like canned soup 400,000 years ago

A new study has found that prehistoric humans have preserved bone marrow in their caves for up to nine weeks as a soup pot.

Researchers previously thought that Paleolithic people lived a hand-to-mouth existence but this research shows they were sophisticated enough to preserve meat using bones like we use modern-day cans. 

The research shows this took place in Qesem cave in what is now Tel Aviv between 420,000 and 200,000 years ago. According to the study published in Science Advances, it is the earliest evidence of delayed food consumption in the world.

Professor Ran Barkai of the university in Tel Aviv, who was involved in research, said, “The bones were used as ‘ cans ‘ that preserved the bone marrow for a long time until it was time to take off the dry skin, shatter the bone and eat the marrow.

“Bone marrow constitutes a significant source of nutrition and as such was long featured in the prehistoric diet.

“Until now, evidence has pointed to the immediate consumption of marrow following the procurement and removal of soft tissues. In our paper, we present evidence of storage and delayed consumption of bone marrow at Qesem Cave.”

Inhabitants of the cave brought in selected body parts of hunted animal carcasses. 

“The most common prey was fallow deer, and limbs and skulls were brought to the cave while the rest of the carcass was stripped of meat and fat at the hunting scene and left there,” said Professor Jordi Rosell from the Catalan Institute of Human Paleoecology and Social Evolution (IPHES).

Researchers found deer leg bones had specific chopping marks on them which do not look like marks left from stripping fresh skin.

They believe the bones were left covered in the skin to help preserve them until they needed the meat. 

Scientists have also found people regularly used fire, cooked and roasted meat in Qesem Cave. 

“We assume that all this was because elephants, previously a major source of food for humans, were no longer available, so the prehistoric humans in our region had to develop and invent new ways of living,” said Professor Barkai. 

“This kind of behavior allowed humans to evolve and enter into a far more sophisticated kind of socio-economic existence.”

The cave was discovered 15 years ago during the construction of a road to Tel Aviv. 

A 2010 study into the traces caused controversy in the archaeology world as it questioned the theory of Homo sapiens originating in Africa, but the archaeologists were unable to draw a concrete conclusion from the evidence.

Hoard of 1,200-year-old ‘Arabian Nights’ gold coins in an ancient ‘piggy bank’ discovered in Israel on the fourth day of Hanukkah

In the ancient “piggy bank” Israel archeologists have found a small treasure trove of gold coins, which is believed to be the personal savings of a potter that worked in a kiln around 1200 years ago.

They date from the period when the region was ruled by the mighty Abbasid Caliphate and was unearthed at a medieval industrial site. The find was made during the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah when Jews exchange gifts and celebrate.

In Yavne in central Israel archeologists discovered gold coins. A team led by Liat Nadav-Ziv and Dr. Elie Haddad were excavating an area that will eventually be the location of a new residential neighborhood.

On behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority, they conducted the investigation. A significant number of items were discovered by the team, but nothing unusual until they found a small jug

Nadav-Ziv told The Jerusalem Post that she was “cataloging a large number of artifacts found during the excavations when all of a sudden I heard shouts of joy”.

They had come from veteran archaeologist Marc Molkondov, and he directed them to a spot in the dig. He had unearthed a small cracked jug full of a number of coins. This was clearly an important find.

Dr. Robert Kool, a coin expert from the Israel Antiquities Authority examined the coins. There were all from the 7th-9th centuries AD and date to the early Abbasid period. The Abbasid Caliphate is regarded as an Islamic golden age when the arts, industry, and science flourished.

One of the most important coins found was a gold dinar from the reign of Caliph Harun A-Rashid (786-809 AD). He ruled the Abbasid Caliphate at the zenith of its power and wealth and is a “key figure in the classic collection of stories known as the Arabian Nights also known as One Thousand and One Nights” according to The Jerusalem Post.

In the jug were coins not normally found in Israel. Dr. Kool is quoted by the Jewish Press as saying that there “are gold dinars issued by the Aghlabid dynasty that ruled in North Africa, in the region of modern Tunisia”. This dynasty was largely autonomous but was ultimately under the control of the Abbasids, whose capital was in Baghdad.

The coins were discovered during the major Jewish holiday Chanukah, otherwise known as Hanukkah. During this eight-day festival gifts of coins are given, sometimes chocolate gold coins, are exchanged. Kool is quoted by The Times of Israel as saying that “without a doubt, this is a wonderful Chanukah present for us”.

The excavation at Yavne is not far from a Tel or mound, and a large number of kilns were discovered. The kilns were used in the manufacture of pottery from the late Byzantine to the Early Abbasid period (600 to 900 AD). It appears that the site was once an industrial center and it produced pots, jars, and bowls.

The jug with the treasure trove was unearthed near one of the entrances of the kiln. The Jerusalem Post reports that “it might have been the potter’s ‘piggy-bank’ where he had kept his personal savings”. It is possible that the potter hid the coins at some point and was unable to recover them.

The Yavne site has a long history. Evidence was found that the area was the location of wine production, during the Achaemenid Persian period (5th and 4th centuries BC).

The wine was produced there on a significant scale. Dr. Elie Haddad observed that “the size and number of vats found at the site indicated that wine was produced on a commercial scale, well beyond the local needs of Yavne’s ancient population” reports The Jerusalem Post. It appears that the region exported wine to other areas.

The jug filled with coins is an important find in itself. The discovery helps us to understand more about an important industrial center in the Middle Ages and the region’s role in the international trade network that flourished under the Abbasids. Further excavations at the site are expected to reveal more about Yavneh’s ancient and medieval past.

Neolithic Seawall Discovered in Mediterranean Waters

Scientists have discovered an ancient seawall constructed by the Neolithic people to protect their village from a sea-level rise over 7,000 years ago.

This wall, which is 330 meters off the Carmel coast of Israel, had been constructed over a mile of riverbed stone, in order to build a barrier between the Mediterranean and Tel Heriz settlement.

Researchers led by Ehud Galili from the University of Haifa, Israel, in a study published in PLOS One claim that it represents the oldest known coastal defense system in the world with “a major effort spent by the neolithic villagers to create, organize and construct.”

At the time the settlement existed, sea levels were rising as global temperatures warmed following the end of the last ice age. The Mediterranean was rising by up to seven millimeters (0.27 inches) per year. Over a lifetime, this would have equaled around 20 centimeters.

“This rate of sea-level rise means the frequency of destructive storms damaging the village would have risen significantly,” Galili said in a statement.

“The environmental changes would have been noticeable to people, during the lifetime of a settlement across several centuries. Eventually, the accumulating yearly sea-level necessitated a human response involving the construction of a coastal protection wall similar to what we’re seeing around the world now.”

The Tel Hreiz settlement was first uncovered in the 1960s but the seawall was only identified in 2010 after a severe storm exposed it. Galili and his team then set about analyzing the remains of the submerged wall.

They found it was almost 10 feet tall and was built around the same time as the village. Over the course of decades, the seawall would have suffered from marine erosion, the researchers say.

After the sand layer was removed, waves and storms may have eventually dislodged boulders and stones.

Despite this “display of resilience” in the face of sea-level rise, the people of Tel Hreiz eventually left the village and, over time, both the seawall and village were lost to the sea.

“The seawall may have worked for a period,” the team wrote, “however, ultimately it proved futile and the village was eventually abandoned. The Tel Hreiz seawall represents the earliest example of a coastal defense of this type known to date.”

The team points to parallels with the sea-level rise mankind is facing today. While the rate at the moment is considerably lower than what these Neolithic people were facing, it is expected that many of the world’s coastal towns and cities will be impacted in the next century.

“Given the size of coastal populations and modern urban settlements, the magnitude of predicted future population displacement differs considerably to the impacts on people during the Neolithic,” the study said.

“However, many of the fundamental human questions and the decision-making relating to human resilience, coastal defense, local adaptation, technological innovation and decisions to ultimately abandon long-standing settlements remain ominously relevant.”