MIGDAL, ISRAEL—A town occupied from the second or first century B.C. to the fifth century A.D. was discovered during a field survey of the northwest coast of the Sea of Galilee. Ken Dark of the University of Reading says that the well-known “the Sea of Galilee boat,” a 2,000-year-old boat discovered in 1986 and housed in the Yigal Alon Museum, had come from the shores of this town. Other artifacts, such as weights and stone anchors, suggest an involvement with fishing. Limestone vessels often associated with Jewish purity practices during the Roman period were unearthed, in addition to an altar made of light-gray limestone that may have been used by polytheists. “This settlement may have contained masonry buildings, some with mosaic floors and architectural stonework,” Dark wrote in the journal Palestine Exploration Quarterly.
