On Mount Scopus, a promontory which dominates Jerusalem and which the Hebrew texts call “Har HaTsofim”, “The Mountain of Watchers”an anti-looting operation turned into a major archaeological discovery. Traffickers had spotted a cavity forgotten for two millennia on the eastern slope, where a real workshop for manufacturing stone dishes dating from the Second Temple period was hidden.
The looters had arrived at night, equipped with a generator, metal detectors and excavation equipment, with the intention of grabbing as many items as possible to resell on the black market. But an infiltration operation carried out by the theft prevention unit of the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) made it possible to arrest them… and get their hands, before them, on a veritable cave of treasures. No precious stones here or mountains of gold coins, but chalky limestone vessels dating from the Second Temple.
Inside, IAA inspectors not only found a complete workshop where containers were turned and cut to be sold to locals and pilgrims in open-air markets. They also uncovered hydraulic infrastructures reminiscent of the reservoirs of the Nabataean city of Petra in Jordan, a small limestone quarry, a ritual bath (“mikveh”), as well as tombs dug into the rock and remaining intact for nearly 2,000 years. In Israel, the oldest rock tombs date back some 5,000 years.
The workshop takes place in a very specific context: the period of the Second Temple, between the reconstruction of the sanctuary of Jerusalem after the exile (around 515 BCE) and its destruction by the Romans between 70 and 135 CE. In a few centuries, Judea passed from Persian domination to that of the Ptolemies of Egypt, the Seleucids, the Hasmoneans – who granted it the greatest autonomy – then the Romans, who also used Mount Scopus as a military observation post.
Dishwashing enthusiasts are in for a treat
Second Temple Judaism was deeply marked by these political and religious upheavals. The First Temple, built by King Solomon in the 10the century BC to house the Ark of the Covenant, was the heart of Jewish worship until the conquest of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar II. The Babylonian ruler besieged the city, broke down its walls in 587 BC, burned the Temple and deported part of the population to Babylon. Tragic irony: several centuries later, the Second Temple would also be destroyed on the 9th of Av (between July and August), the same day on the Hebrew calendar.
The vessels seized from Mount Scopus were transferred to the Jay and Jeanie Schottenstein National Archeology Campus in Jerusalem for study. Archaeologists have not yet detailed their precise uses, but similar objects found elsewhere show that these stone dishes were mainly used for drinking and eating.
Low-cost products, less fragile than ceramics, these containers had another crucial advantage. In the “halachah”Jewish law, the stone is deemed not to contract ritual impurity. The Torah does not require purification or destruction of stone utensils that have touched something “impure.” At the time of the Second Temple, where the rules of purity occupied a central place in religious life, this property made it an ideal material for domestic and religious tableware. Workshops like that of Mount Scopus therefore supplied a very demanding market, both practical and spiritual.
For Eitan Klein, deputy director of the IAA’s theft prevention unit, the interest goes far beyond this single site. “The discovery of this workshop is particularly important, because it now allows us to have a global vision of the region”he explains to the Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle. With a few workshops already known in the surrounding area, this completes the map of a real artisanal network structured around Jerusalem at the end of Antiquity.
The case also serves as a reminder of the extent to which antiquities trafficking directly threatens our knowledge of the past. Without the intervention of the authorities, these hundreds of objects would have left anonymously to fill private collections, deprived of their archaeological context.
