A 1,700-year-old ceramic oil lamp, decorated with depictions of the Temple of Jerusalem’s menorah, has been uncovered in the city, the Israel Antiquities Authority announced on Thursday.
The lamp, which was used for lighting and has been dated to the Late Roman Period, was uncovered completely intact during an archaeological excavation on the Mount of Olives earlier this year, the state-run archaeological body said.
The announcement of the discovery was timed for the eight-day Chanukah holiday that began on Wednesday evening.
The Mount of Olives lamp is one of the few material traces of a Jewish presence around Jerusalem in the 3rd-5th centuries CE, more two hundred years after the destruction of the Second Temple by the Romans.
The lamp is decorated with depictions of the Temple menorah, an incense shovel and a lulav, the date palm branch used in Jewish ritual.
“The lamp, which was found complete, makes it an outstanding and extremely rare,” said Michael Chernin, excavation director at the site.
He noted that there is very little evidence of the existence of a Jewish settlement in and around Jerusalem from this period, which followed the expulsion of Jews from the city after Roman Emperor Hadrian suppressed the Bar Kochba revolt in 135 CE.
“The Temple menorah became a Jewish symbol in the Second Temple period. However, after the Temple’s destruction, the menorah image became an important icon in the Jewish collective memory both within Israel and in the Diaspora,” said IAA research archaeologist Benjamin Storchan.
“This unique oil lamp, which in an exciting manner bears the symbols of the Temple, connects the lights of the past with the Chanukah holiday of today, and expresses the deep and long-standing connection of the nation of Israel to its heritage and to the Temple’s memory,” Minister of Heritage Rabbi Amichai Eliyahu said in a statement.
The rare lamp will be on public display for the first time at the National Campus for the Archaeology of Israel, located between the Israel Museum and the Bible Lands Museum in Jerusalem, during Chanukah.
