“This discovery bridges a certain gap in Jerusalem’s settlement sequence,” says excavation co-director.
Despite over 100 years of exhaustive excavations throughout Jerusalem’s City of David, archeologists have been unable to find a single significant structure from the Hasmonean period, until now.
On Tuesday, following months of delicate probing and analysis, the Antiquities Authority announced an unprecedented finding – a 4- meter-high building from the second century BCE, covering some 64 square meters, with dozens of ancient coins still lying on its floors.
The structure, enclosed by walls made of roughly hewn limestone blocks more than a meter thick, was found earlier this year in the Givati parking lot, located by the walls surrounding the City of David National Park.
The Hasmonean dynasty, descendants of the Maccabee family, ruled Judea and surrounding areas from 141-37 BCE, during classical antiquity.
In 37 BCE the Hasmoneans fell to Herod the Great, of Edomite…