TEL AVIV, ISRAEL—Azriel Yechezkel of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and his colleagues identified so-called cave pearls containing archaeological artifacts, according to a Phys.org report. The rare speleothems were recovered from the Joweizeh spring tunnel, which was built near Jerusalem around the eighth century B.C. to bring water to the surface. Cave pearls are usually formed as layers of mineral deposits in water cover a central grain of sand on a cave floor over many years. These cave pearls were discovered in a section of the spring tunnel that had been carved from bedrock, Yechezkel explained. Pottery or ancient plaster were found in 14 of the 50 cave pearls recovered. Most of the pottery has been dated back to the Hellenistic period, beginning around 333 B.C., through the Roman and Byzantine periods, which ended in A.D. 636. Two of the fragments were found to have a cobalt-rich coating, indicating that the pottery may have been imported from Cyprus or Turkey in the first or second centuries B.C. Yechezkel thinks these fragments may represent an expensive lamp carried by an engineer overseeing maintenance of the tunnel. Read the original scholarly article about this research in Archaeometry. To read about iron swords found in a cave on the banks of the Dead Sea, go to "Cave of Swords," one of ARCHAEOLOGY's Top 10 Discoveries of 2023.
