Inscribed Scale Weight Unearthed in Jerusalem

News September 14, 2016

(Oren Gutfeld and Asaf Peretz, Israel Antiquities Authority)
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Jerusalem scale weight
(Oren Gutfeld and Asaf Peretz, Israel Antiquities Authority)

JERUSALEM, ISRAEL—Ynetnews.com reports that a scale weight dating to the Second Temple period has been found in the Old City, at the site where the nineteenth-century Tiferet Israel Synagogue was located. Oren Gutfield of Hebrew University said that the weight is carved with two lines of text in Aramaic, which have not been fully translated, but are said to include the family name of a high priest. The weight was found beneath a burned layer thought to represent the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70. Artifacts from the Ottoman, Mamluk, Byzantine, and First Temple periods have also been recovered. For more, go to "The Gates of Gath."

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