HORBAT ASSAD, ISRAEL—According to a Live Science report, a farmstead thought to have been abandoned in the late second century B.C. has been found in northern Israel, near the Sea of Galilee. Archaeologist Amani Abu-Hamid of the Israel Antiquities Authority said that during this period, the Judean Hasmonean kingdom expanded from the south into the Galilee. The farmers may have been subjects of the Seleucid Empire who fled the invasion, since the researchers uncovered intact storage jars, loom weights kept on a shelf, farm tools including iron picks and scythes, and coins. The farmers may have raised sheep or goats, and used their fleece or hair for weaving cloth, based upon the large number of loom weights, he added. To read about a purple dye industry that thrived for nearly three millennia on the Mediterranean Coast, go to “Letter from Israel: The Price of Purple.”
