Photo credit: Emil Eljam, Israel Antiquities Authority
Archaeologists have made remarkable discoveries during the recent excavation of an ancient sewer beneath Jerusalem’s main Second Temple-era thoroughfare. The finds, including an intact glass vial, grape seeds, 2,000-year-old eggshells and ceramic lamps with still-sooty stains, offer a glimpse into urban life in Jerusalem in the decades before the Temple’s destruction in 70 AD.
This excavation, conducted by the Israel Antiquities Authority and funded by the City of David, is uncovering the city’s most important underground canal. This canal ran beneath Jerusalem’s bustling marketplaces near the Temple Mount and stretched the entire length of the City of David.
These discoveries shed new light on the development of Jerusalem’s urban landscape in the last years before the fall of the Temple and provide concrete connections to everyday life during this historical period.
“The remains of life above Jerusalem’s main street were washed into the mouth of the canal, where they remained between the walls just as they were when the city was destroyed,” explains Dr. Ayala Zilberstein, excavation director for the Israel Antiquities Authority. “Small finds tell us a big story, from Jerusalem’s heyday of prosperity and splendor, when its streets were bustling with life, to the city’s periods of decline during the revolt against the Romans and its complete abandonment after the Temple and the destruction of the city.”
According to Dr. Zilberstein, “The discovery of layers of mud in the main drainage canal, which filled it to almost half its height, indicates a gradual neglect of municipal maintenance, since most of these urban canals were regularly maintained and cleaned. And indeed, this very neglect and deterioration, which we are witnessing here now, corresponds to the history of the process of the destruction of Jerusalem.”
The upper layers of sediment revealed artifacts from Jerusalem’s final days, including intact ceramic lamps from the late Second Temple period. These lamps still have soot stains on their edges, silent witnesses to the flames they once contained. This discovery is similar to an earlier find made by Eli Shukron’s team a few meters to the south: a complete Roman sword in a leather sheath. Researchers are now investigating whether these lamps, like the sword, could have heard rebels seeking refuge in this canal during the fall of the city.
The deeper excavations revealed numerous artifacts that paint a vivid picture of Jerusalem’s prosperity during the Second Temple period, a period of constant activity and urban vitality. The careful manual excavation led by Nissim Mizrahi and his experienced team uncovered numerous intact vessels. These included vials that once contained perfumes and precious oils, made primarily of ceramic. Among them was a remarkably well-preserved, delicate glass vial, an exceptional find given its fragility.
The initial examination of the ceramic and glass vessel collections by Dr. Yael Gorin-Rosen and Dr. Shulamit Terem indicated an exceptionally rich and diverse concentration of vessel types, some of which are quite rare.
“Due to this great variety of pots and dishes that have accumulated in the sewer, we come across almost all of the dishes used by the inhabitants of Jerusalem. In contrast to the limited number of vessels that are usually found in excavations in a single household kitchen, the sewer collection comes from many houses and from different streets in the city and thus presents us with examples of almost all of the goods that the city’s traders had to offer,” explains Dr. Zilberstein.
Recognizing the archaeological significance of the canal’s sedimentary layers, all excavated soil was carefully preserved and sent to the Sifting Project at Emek Zurim National Park for thorough study. While this process yielded coins and decorative beads, the most important contribution came from an unexpected source: food remains that offered insight into the diet of ancient Jews.
The discovery of grape seeds, cereal grains, fish bones and even eggshells provided insight into the eating habits of Jerusalem’s inhabitants during the city’s bustling period. The abundance of organic material led to a number of different laboratory analyses to discover microscopic remains.
Preliminary research by Vitali Sterman and Dr. Yotam Asher of the Israel Antiquities Authority has already revealed a clear distinction between layers representing the active life of the city and those from later periods. This stratification provides a timeline of Jerusalem’s urban development and its subsequent decline. These findings not only shed light on daily life in ancient Jerusalem, but also demonstrate the value of careful archaeological practices in uncovering hidden aspects of history.
“The closer you get to the layers from the later period of the city, the less evidence there is of human artefacts and the picture that emerges is one of the decline in the vitality of the city,” adds Dr. Zilberstein.
The important layers are sampled using innovative methods.
