Rare oil lamp with Temple menorah found from time when Romans barred Jews from Jerusalem
Intricately designed 1,700-year-old artifact was discovered intact near the Mount of Olives, will go on display in Jerusalem
Gavriel Fiske is a reporter at The Times of Israel
A rare, 4th-century CE ceramic oil lamp recently discovered during Israeli Antiquities Authorities excavations near the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem will be displayed to the public for the first time during the current Hanukkah holiday, the IAA said Thursday.
The unusual lamp is decorated with imagery related to the services in the Jewish Second Temple in Jerusalem, including a Temple menorah (which had seven branches, unlike the nine-branched menorahs used during Hanukkah). Also depicted on the small lamp are an incense shovel, which Temple priests used when making offerings, and a lulav, the date palm frond used during the Sukkot holiday.
The lamp was unearthed a few months ago and was discovered intact, a rarity for objects of the type, an IAA official told The Times of Israel.
After examination, the “outstanding” artifact was determined to be 1,700 years old, dating from the late Roman period, making the find “particularly surprising, since we have very little evidence of the existence of a Jewish settlement in and around Jerusalem from this period,” said Michael Chernin, excavation director.
The Second Temple was destroyed in 70 CE, and the Roman emperor Hadrian suppressed the Bar Kochba Revolt in 135 CE, after which Jews were expelled from Jerusalem, now renamed Aelia Capitolina. Therefore, “the Mount of Olives lamp is one of the few material traces of a Jewish presence around Jerusalem in the 3rd-5th centuries CE,” Chernin said.
“Just as today many of us possess objects of Jewish significance,” the lamp’s owner had possessed an item that recalled the Second Temple, some 200 years after its destruction, the IAA noted in announcing the find.
The lamp was manufactured in an ancient workshop near Beit Shemesh called “Beit Nattif,” according to Benjamin Storchan, IAA research archaeologist.
Storchan said the lamp was made in two parts using “delicately and intricately carved limestone molds” into which the clay was set. The two parts were then pressed together and fired, a process that allowed for “refined designs.”
“The nozzle and lamp shoulders were decorated with geometric designs and the center features a detailed deception of the seven-branched menorah with a tripod base,” he said, adding that the menorah decoration made the lamp “exceedingly rare.”
The lamp is “a fascinating testimony connecting everyday objects and faiths among ancient Jerusalem’s inhabitants. It seems that the lamp belonged to a Jew, who purchased it because of its religious affiliation and memorial to the Temple,” Storchan said.
After the destruction of the Temple, “the menorah image became an important icon in the Jewish collective memory both within Israel and the Diaspora,” he said. Menorah imagery “occasionally appears on personal objects such as oil lamps, which, being an illumination vessel, perhaps evoked a feeling of lighting the Temple menorah,” he added.
The lamp is to be shown to the public for the first time during Hanukkah, together with several stone molds that were used to manufacture similar lamps, during tours at the Jay and Jeanie Schottenstein National Campus for the Archaeology of Israel in Jerusalem, the IAA said.
