Ayayu Belete, a City of David worker who discovered the pendant, described the moment of finding it. "One day while I was digging inside an ancient structure, I suddenly saw something different, gray, among the stones," Belete recounted, according to the Israel Antiquities Authority. "I picked up the object out and saw that it was a pendant with a menorah on it. I immediately showed the find to Esther Rakow-Mellet, the area director, and she said it was an especially rare find. I was deeply moved and excited!"

Historical records indicate Jews faced prohibitions against entering Jerusalem during Byzantine rule, complicating the interpretation of menorah-decorated artifacts found in the city. Researchers question whether such finds represent random occurrences or belonged to Jews who came to Jerusalem for commerce, administrative purposes, or clandestine pilgrimages under unofficial circumstances, according to the report.

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The previous evening, Milei posted on X regarding the Yemen missile launch that sent millions to shelters, stating "I strongly recommend that when you react to what happens in Israel, remember what it's like to live in this situation. I witnessed this from the hotel where I'm staying in Jerusalem."

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met today, at the Prime Minister's Office in Jerusalem, with Argentine President Javier Milei.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to @JMilei: "Javier, you are a real friend of Israel!" pic.twitter.com/6itXnhyetf

— Prime Minister of Israel (@IsraeliPM) June 10, 2025

Prior to the cancellation, Milei had met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Isaac Herzog. Herzog presented him with a replica of an ancient silver amulet discovered in the Ben Hinnom Valley, bearing the inscription "May the Lord bless you and keep you."

ÚLTIMO MOMENTO
Sugiero de modo muy enfático que al momento de opinar sobre que pasa en ISRAEL tengan presente lo que es vivir bajo esta situación... Esto acabo de ver desde el hotel en el que estoy hospedado en Jerusalén.

Cc: @Isaac_Herzog @netanyahu pic.twitter.com/NlCyNVCD4U

— Javier Milei (@JMilei) June 10, 2025

Should his visit proceed according to schedule, Milei will travel to Tel Aviv to inaugurate a park near the Sarona Complex. His itinerary also includes meetings with prominent rabbis, including Rabbi Dovid Abuchatzeira, and speaking with Argentine citizens who survived Hamas captivity. He is also scheduled to meet with the Cunio and Horn families, whose sons remain in Hamas captivity.

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An extraordinary discovery has captivated archaeologists and historians alike – a 2,300-year-old gold ring unearthed in the City of David, a renowned archaeological site in Jerusalem. The delicate artifact, likely belonging to a child during the Hellenistic period, was found during a joint excavation by the Israel Antiquities Authority and Tel Aviv University, supported by the Elad Foundation.

Tehiya Gangate, a member of the excavation team, recounted the exhilarating moment of the find: "I was sifting through the earth, and suddenly, I saw something glitter. I immediately yelled, 'I found a ring, I found a ring!' Within seconds, everyone gathered around me, and there was great excitement. This is an emotionally moving find, not the kind you find every day. In truth, I always wanted to find gold jewelry, and I am very happy this dream came true – literally a week before I went on maternity leave."

Dr. Yiftah Shalev and Riki Zalut Har-tov, directors of the excavation for the Israel Antiquities Authority, provided insights into the ring's significance. "The ring is very small. It would fit a woman's pinky, or a young girl or boy's finger," they explained. Dr. Marion Zindel noted that the ring was meticulously crafted by hammering thin gold leaves onto a metal base, reflecting the prevalent fashion of the Persian and Early Hellenistic periods from the late 4th to early 3rd century BCE.

Professor Yuval Gadot of Tel Aviv University and excavator Efrat Bocher highlighted the broader implications of this find, stating, "The recently-found gold ring joins other ornaments of the early Hellenistic period found in the City of David excavations, including the horned-animal earring and the decorated gold bead." They added, "These new finds tell a different story: The aggregate of revealed structures now constitutes an entire neighborhood. They attest to both domestic and public buildings, and that the city extended from the hilltop westward. The character of the buildings – and now, of course, the gold finds and other discoveries, display the city's healthy economy and even its elite status."

Gold jewelry was a hallmark of the Hellenistic world, with Alexander the Great's conquests facilitating the spread of luxury goods across the eastern Mediterranean Basin. Eli Escusido, head of the Israel Antiquities Authority, emphasized the significance of such discoveries, stating, "The excavation in ancient Jerusalem reveals invaluable information to us about our past."

The rare find will be exhibited to the public for the first time during the free "Jerusalem Mysteries" conference hosted by the Israel Antiquities Authority on Jerusalem Day, shedding light on the city's rich history and the lives of its inhabitants during the Hellenistic era.

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Just ahead of Hanukkah, archaeologists working at the City of David National Park, which surrounds the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem, have identified an oil lamp dating back 2,000 years to the Hasmonean period.

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The lamp was discovered during the excavation of an entire home located on the eastern slope of the park.

Oil was poured into the lamp via a hole in its top, and there is a second, smaller hole off one side through which the owners would thread a wick. The edge of the lamp is blackened, indicating that it had been used.

Dr. Philip Wakosowicz, director of the excavation, said, "Lamps like this one are not rare and are found in many digs, but it's definitely exciting to excavate a Hasmonean-era lamp in the City of David right before Hanukkah."

According to Wakosowicz, "The City of David excavation never stops yielding important finds, which testify to the long, rich history of the city and the region as a whole."

Oil lamps were historically used for everyday needs, such as lighting homes, but also for religious rites, such as Shabbat or Hanukkah candle-lighting. Lamps from different eras have different forms and characteristics, which can help researchers date buildings at archaeological digs.

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Archaeologists working in Jerusalem have discovered proof of a major earthquake that occurred in the Land of Israel 2,800 years ago that is mentioned in the Bible.

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Evidence of the quake has been excavated at various locations throughout Israel, but researchers believe that for the first time, archaeologists have positively identified traces of ruin that demonstrate that the cataclysmic event affected Jerusalem, as well.

Excavations at the City of David National Park outside the Old City of Jerusalem have revealed a layer of ruins that include a number of smashed artifacts, including lamps, storage jugs, and cooking vessels that were crushed when the building in which they were found collapsed.

Researchers think that because the findings do not bear signs of fire, the event that caused their destructive had not been caused intentionally, and was instead the result of an earthquake that shook Israel in the eighth century BCE, in the time of the Kingdom of Judah.

Excavation directors Dr. Joe Uziel and Ortal Chalaf of the IAA noted that "When we excavated the structure and exposed a layer of destruction from the eighth century BCE, we were very surprised, because we know that Jerusalem existed continually until the Babylonian destruction, which occurred some 200 years later.

"We asked ourselves what could have caused the dramatic layer of destruction we had uncovered. After examining the findings from the dig, we tried to look into whether there was a biblical explanation for it. Interestingly, the earthquake mentioned in the books of Amos and Zechariah happened in the same period when the building we excavated in the City of David collapsed.

"The combination of the discovery in the field along with the biblical description led us to conclude that the earthquake that caused damage to the Land of Israel during the reign of Uzziah King of Judah, also damaged the capital of the kingdom – Jerusalem," Uziel and Chalaf explained.

The findings from the dig, conducted by the Israel Antiquities Authority, will be presented to the general public at the City of David Studies of Ancient Jerusalem conference, an annual event hosted by the Megalim Institute. The conference is currently scheduled to take place in early September.

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Everything in Israel is about politics. But nothing is more intensely political than archeology. That's because the moment you stick a shovel in the earth of a place like Jerusalem and start digging, you are inevitably going to encounter Jewish history – and that is something that those who label Israel a colonialist enterprise intended to disinherit the "indigenous" inhabitants cannot abide.

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That is why Eilat Mazar, one of Israel's most distinguished and important archeologists, remained controversial throughout her career. Mazar, a professor at the Hebrew University's Institute of Archeology who died this week at the age of 64, inspired critiques from professional colleagues who didn't share her interpretations of her work, as well as from Arabs who, as some told The New York Times in 2019, denied the entire existence of ancient Jewish history. Indeed, Mahmoud Abbas, the "moderate" head of the Palestinian Authority, has claimed that there was no biblical temple on what Jews call the Temple Mount, where Muslims subsequently built mosques, and that all Jewish ties to places like the Western Wall throughout their capital are fiction.

So denying the historicity of the finds that Mazar discovered at places like the City of David National Park aren't merely academic arguments, but go to the heart of attempts to delegitimize Israel's existence. Thus, although a scholar and not a politician, Mazar's work didn't just provide a fascinating look into Israel's ancient past. It's an essential part of the answer to those who deny Jewish rights anywhere in their homeland.

Mazar came by her interest in archeology naturally. She is the granddaughter of Benjamin Mazar, one of the pioneering figures in the field and a president of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She assisted him on his digs along the southern and western walls of the Old City, including the Ophel, the area between the City of David and the Temple Mount, in the 1970s, which was made possible by the reunification of the city in the 1967 Six-Day War.

But she would later become a major figure herself because of her own historic finds in what was the site of the city during the time of Davidic Kingdom some 3,000 years ago, just south of the current Old City walls in the area known as Silwan. Though her work spanned decades, she was principally known for discovering the site of what she believed to be King David's palace in August 2005.

When I interviewed her only a few days after her initial announcement, she described to me the long years of study, writing and preparation before the dig began. But as she said, "Once I started to excavate, it was as if I had written nothing. Now, the stones will speak, not me."

And speak they did.

What she found was the remains of what must have been a huge building for the era. When she dug underneath the structure, she found masses of pottery that could be dated to the 11th and 12th centuries BCE, what scholars call Iron Age I. That meant the building was constructed after that, which placed it exactly in the time of David. The dating of the material made it clear that it was not related to the Jebusite era.

Speaking of those scholars who have tried to argue that David is a historic myth created by the Hebrew bible, Mazar said her discovery proved that "this fantastic building is a big, obvious answer to those who say Jerusalem was an unimportant settlement."

Other artifacts she found there further substantiated her conclusions, including bullahs or seals that date to the First Temple era with the names of figures directly mentioned in the Bible, which also provide a rebuke to those who dispute the idea that the Bible is a book of Jewish history, as well as the foundation of Jewish and Christian faith. Those who wish to treat the Jewish presence in Jerusalem as an alien intrusion have no response to artifacts like those that mention a minister of King Zedekiah, as well as others that arguably may well have belonged to King Hezekiah and the Prophet Isaiah.

While her scholarship and the integrity of her digs could not be seriously questioned, many critics took exception to the fact that, like her famous grandfather, Mazar understood that the Bible was not merely a source of religious or literary inspiration. It was also a vital source of information about the history of the era. Indeed, it was through a reading of a crucial verse in the book of Samuel II (Chapter 5, Verse 17), that she decided that if David had gone down from where he was to his fortress, then Silwan was the spot where David's abode might be found.

Mazar tried to stay out of politics, but it inevitably intruded into her efforts.

She was a leader in the effort to stop the vandalism and desecration of the Temple Mount carried out by the Muslim Waqf, which administers it, when they excavated parts of the ancient site with bulldozers and then dumped the remains outside the city walls. She helped lead the effort to create a sifting project in which those precious remains were examined by volunteers; many important historical artifacts from the Temple periods were found, although it's clear that many more treasures were wantonly destroyed by the Waqf.

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Mazar was also a voice seeking to preserve other archeological sites like Robinson's Arch, which encompasses parts of the Western Wall to the Temple. She also deserves credit for being willing to reach out to American Christians who love Israel and to help make them understand that preserving the Jewish history of Jerusalem was something important to their faith, too.

Today, visitors to the City of David can see the excavated structure that Mazar found, as well as a wealth of other material that she and other archeologists uncovered. But critics of her work aren't interested in these fascinating discoveries because anything that further establishes Jewish ties to the area infuriates local Arabs, who say this historical heritage is a hindrance to their efforts to redivide Jerusalem and establish a Palestinian state there.

The effort to delegitimize the work of Mazar and her colleagues at the City of David points to a basic problem: If you're going to deny Jewish rights to the place where David and his descendants ruled their ancient kingdom, then you can deny them anywhere in the country. And that is what Palestinians have continued to do. Their attempt to treat the City of David or even the Western Wall as Jewish myths, rather than the beginning of Jewish civilization, is inextricably linked to their refusal to recognize the legitimacy of a Jewish state, no matter where its borders might be drawn.

Mazar's colleagues have spoken of how she helped a new generation of archeologists establish their own careers, as well as how she helped blaze the trail for other women in a field that was once thought solely the preserve of men.

For post-Zionist Jews and anti-Zionist opponents of Israel, Mazar's amazing discoveries were a constant source of irritation. But she will be remembered long after them for her role in proving the authenticity of Jewish history. Thanks to her and the Americans who helped fund her work, denials of Jewish ties to Jerusalem remain the moral equivalent of flat-earth advocates. That's true even if they are legitimized by contemporary advocates of critical race theory and white privilege, which falsely seek to label Jews – the true indigenous people of the land that was once the biblical Kingdom of Judea – colonizers. May her memory be for a blessing.

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org

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A Hungarian archaeologist could have found a matching piece for a 2,000-year-old oil lamp recently found in Jerusalem, the City of David said in a press release.

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Last Wednesday, the Israel Antiquities Authority announced it had found a rare artifact – a small oil lamp shaped like the left half of a grotesque face.

Found at the foundation of a building, the distinct bronze lamp was thought to be a lucky charm left there to bring good fortune to the residents.

The archaeologists found the lamp at the Pilgrimage Road section of the CIty of David – an ancient road once treaded by Jewish pilgrims on their way to the Temple Mount.

Soon after the researchers announced their find, Dr. Gabor Lassanyi, a Hungarian archaeologist, reached out to his Israeli peers to let them known that he had found what could be the second half of the artifact.

According to the press release, Lassanyi found a lamp designed as a right half of a grotesque face when excavating the ruins of the ancient Romana city of Aquincum, located in Budapest, back in 2012.

In his letter, he said that the lamp was also uncovered at the foundation of a building, and that the craftsmanship involved in creating such a piece, as well as its rarity, could suggest that the lamps could have been part of one set.

The two lamps have matching dimensions, the archaeologists said, and their design hints that it could have been possible to link the two sections into a single unit.

This article was first published by i24NEWS.

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A rare bronze oil lamp, believed to be the first discovery of its kind in Israel, was unearthed this week during excavations conducted by the Israel Antiquities Authority in the City of David National Park in Jerusalem.

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The artifact, which dates back to the period after the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, was found in the foundations of a building, which archeologists believe was deliberately buried there "to bring good luck to the occupants of the building."

"The building where the lamp was discovered was built directly on top of the Pilgrimage Road at the end of the Second Temple period," archeologist Dr. Yuval Baruch explained.

"It is possible that the importance of the building, and the need to bless its activity with luck by burying a foundation deposit, was due to its proximity to the Siloam Pool, which was also used in the Roman period as the central source of water within the city."

The archeologists have discovered only half of the artifact, which is shaped like a bearded man, and hope to find the second half soon.

After the bronze lamp was unearthed, it was sent to the authority for treatment and preservation and put in the care of Ilia Reznitsky, who discovered, upon further inspection, that inside the lamp was preserved its wick, a very rare find.

Archeologists also pointed out that while many decorated bronze oil lamps that were used as candelabras or hung from a chain have been discovered throughout the Roman Empire, the one unearthed in the City of David is a very rare find, with only a few other such artifacts found in the world, and only the first of its kind in Jerusalem.

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A rare object used to measure volume that dates back some 2,000 years that was recently unearthed by the Israel Antiquities Authority in the City of David National Park gives credence to the theory that researchers have uncovered the city square that served as a marketplace in the Second Temple era.

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Researchers suggest that the office of the "Agoranomos" – represented the official in charge of weights and measures in the city of Jerusalem.

Professor Ronny Reich, who is studying the artifact, explained that the stone "standard of volumes" table unearthed in the City of David still bears two of the original deep cavities, each with a drain at its bottom.

"The drain at the bottom could be plugged with a finger, filled with a liquid of some type, and once the finger was removed, the liquid could be drained into a container, therefore determining the volume of the container, using the measurement table as a uniform guideline. This way, traders could calibrate their measuring instruments using a uniform standard," Reich noted.

Reich explained that the "standard of volumes" was a rare find, as only two similar tables have been excavated in Jerusalem to date: one in the Jewish Quarter in the 1970s, and the second in excavations in the Shuafat neighborhood in the north of the city.

Archaeologist Ari Levi of the Israel Antiquities Authority, one of the directors of the Pilgrims Road excavation, said that the Pilgrim's Road project has turned up "a great number of stone weights measuring different values. The weights found are of the type which was typically used in Jerusalem. The fact that there were city-specific weights at the site indicates the unique features of the economy and trade in Jerusalem during the Second Temple period, possibly due to the influence of the Temple itself."

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The ancient road in the City of David, which was preserved under the ashes of the Roman sack of Jerusalem in 70 CE, was used by pilgrims to ascend from the Siloam Pool to the Second Temple, according to historical descriptions.

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According to research published on Tuesday in the Journal of the Institute of Archaeology of Tel Aviv University, the more than 100 coins found beneath the ancient road prove it must have been completed between 31 and 40 CE, a period mostly covered by Pilate's governorship.

According to Dr. Donald Ariel, an archaeologist and coin expert with the Israel Antiquities Authority, "Dating using coins is very exact. As some coins have the year in which they were minted on them, what that means is that if a coin with a date on it is found beneath the street, the street had to be built in the same year or after that coin had been minted."

To further narrow things down, Ariel explained that "statistically, coins minted some 10 years later are the most common coins in Jerusalem," and that because these coins are not found under the road, "the street was built before their appearance, in other words only in the time of Pilate."

He suggested the possibility that Pilate had the street built to reduce tensions between the Romans and the Jewish population. Although "we can't know for sure," he said, "these reasons do find support in the historical documents."

Although the excavation of the road began over a century ago following its discovery in 1894 by British archaeologists, over the past six years Israeli archaeologists from the IAA and Tel Aviv University uncovered 350 meters (1,148 feet) of the road as well as artifacts such as coins, cooking pots, complete stone and clay tools, rare glass items, a dais (a raised platform used for public announcements), and parts of arrows and catapults.

At a dedication ceremony for the unveiling of a section of the road in June, US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman said the discoveries made at the site as a confirmation of Israeli sovereignty over the City of David.

Before hammering through the final bit of the wall covering the road at the ceremony, Friedman said: "Whether there was any doubt about the accuracy, the wisdom, the propriety of [US] President [Donald] Trump recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, I certainly think this lays all doubts to rest."

The City of David Foundation, which plans to open the road to the public, funded the excavation and restoration.

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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