Archaeologists find 2,000-year-old rare stone vessel used in Jewish rituals
A rare 2,000-year-old workshop for the production of chalkstone vessels, dating to the Roman period, was recently unearthed by archaeologists from the Israel Antiquities Authority during excavations at Reina, in the Lower Galilee.
The excavations took place in a small cave in which researchers found thousands of chalkstone cores and other types of production waste, including fragments of stone mugs and bowls in various stages of production, the Authority said Thursday.
The ancient site is the fourth workshop of its kind to ever have been discovered in Israel. It was uncovered during the course of construction work at a municipal sports center conducted by the Reina Local Council.
According to Dr. Yonatan Adler, senior lecturer at Ariel University and director of the excavation on behalf of the IAA, during the first century of the Common Era, Jews throughout Judea and Galilee used tableware and storage vessels made of soft, local chalkstone. Read more.
