Second Temple-era workshop discovered in Jerusalem during arrest of grave robbers

During pursuit of antiquities thieves, archaeologists stumble on 2,000-year-old stone tool workshop dating back to the Second Temple period in Jerusalem.

By World Israel News Staff

A large workshop that furnished Jerusalem’s Jewish population 2,000 years ago with stone tools was uncovered recently on the eastern slopes of Mount Scopus in Jerusalem, the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) said.

The discovery was made accidentally while the IAA’s Theft Prevention Unit was pursuing a gang of antiquities thieves.

After stumbling upon the underground cave, archaeologists found hundreds of stone vessel fragments, production waste, and unfinished items.

Inspectors first noticed suspicious activity at Ras Tamim on the eastern edge of Mount Scopus after discovering signs of fresh digging and attempts to break into an underground area.

In response, the unit began covert surveillance and deployed ambush teams in an effort to identify the perpetrators and catch them in the act.

The operation culminated late one night when five alleged robbers were arrested, the IAA said on Monday.

The suspects were caught with extensive excavation equipment in their possession, including a generator, quarrying tools, and a metal detector.

Some of the suspects were apprehended underground in the cave, while others who served as lookouts and guards were apprehended above ground.

The five were formally arrested and interrogated and later confessed, according to the IAA. They are expected to be indicted on charges of damaging an antiquities site and conducting illegal excavations—offenses that carry penalties of up to five years in prison under Israeli law.

Following the arrests, IAA inspectors searched the cave and said they were surprised to find hundreds of distinctive stone vessel fragments alongside evidence of workshop activity.

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

“A workshop was discovered in the Mount Scopus area while constructing the Naomi Shemer Tunnel between Jerusalem and the town of Ma’ale Adumim to the east. Another production facility was uncovered just north of today’s Jerusalem in the village of Hizma.”

“However, the discovery of this workshop 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 and a limestone quarry.”

According to the IAA, the discovery of the workshop reinforces the view that the Ras Tamim site was an important point on the primary ancient road used by Jewish pilgrims coming to Jerusalem from the east – the Jordan Valley and Jericho area, from communities east of the Jordan River, and from all around the Dead Sea region.

It is believed 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 production and use of stone vessels, based on archaeological finds and their context, was unique to the Jewish population during the later Second Temple period and its aftermath, especially in the Jerusalem and Judea area but elsewhere as well.

Ancient sources describe a revolution in attitudes toward ritual purity and impurity during this period, marked by widespread stringency in the laws governing them and their impact on everyday life.

This contrasts with earlier periods, when it is believed that purity concerns were largely limited to the priestly class, and others involved in Temple and sanctuary service.

Rabbinic sources apparently described this phenomenon with the expression, “an outbreak of purity in Israel” (Tosefta Shabbat 1:7).

Archaeologists have found that purification mikvahs (ritual baths) dating back to this period were installed in private homes, 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.

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