Ancient Stone Workshop Found in Galil

Archaeological excavations conducted in the Galil have uncovered an ancient subterranean quarry and industrial workshop for the production of stone vessels, Arutz Sheva reported on Sunday.

Dr. Yonatan Adler of Ariel University said the finds, believed to be some 2,000 years old, were discovered at a site called Einot Amitai, near Nazareth.

“Stone vessels played an integral role in the daily religious lives of Jews during this period,” explains Adler, who specializes in ancient Jewish ritual law.

In ancient times, most tableware, cooking pots and storage jars were made of pottery. In the first century of the Common Era, however, Jews throughout Yehudah and the Galil used tableware and storage vessels made of soft, local chalkstone. The advantage of stone was that it could not become ritually impure.

While fragments of stone vessels have been found at numerous Early Roman period sites throughout Israel, and two workshops were located in the Yerushalayim area, this was the first time that full-scale excavations have been carried out at a stone vessel production site in the Galil.