JERUSALEM—According to a Fox News report, a basalt tomb door carved with an image of a seven-branched menorah was discovered in the ancient city of Tiberias in 2010. The door, thought to date to the second to fourth centuries, had been reused in the construction of a seventh-century building. Excavation director Katia Cytryn-Silverman of the Institute of Archaeology at Hebrew University explained that the tomb door was probably brought to the site from the Jewish cemetery to the north of the city of Tiberias, when the Umayyads remodeled a mosque that once stood there. After the mosque was destroyed by an earthquake in 1068, the site was used for sugar production by the Knights Hospitaller. To read about the discovery of another item with an image of a menorah, go to “Byzantine Riches.”
