Archaeologists Claim Bayis Sheini Find During Chanukah

Israeli archaeologists said that during Chanukah they discovered a fragment of a glass bracelet inscribed with a seven-branched menorah they believe to be from the Bayis Sheni period, The Jerusalem Post reported on Tuesday.

Israel Antiquities Authority diggers came upon it at an excavation in the Mount Carmel National Park,  where the area was being readied for construction of a water reservoir for the city of Yokneam.

The excavation’s directors said that last Thursday they made the finding of the turquoise-colored glass at the end of the dig.

“While examining the contents of one of the boxes [of artifacts], which contained hundreds of glass fragments that had been discarded in an [ancient] refuse pit, we found to our surprise a small fragment of a bracelet,” they said.

“Stamped impressions of two menorot survived on the small fragment that was found — one a plain seven-branched menorah, of which only the surface of the menorah is visible and the other one consisting of a seven-branched menorah with flames depicted above its branches,” they said.

This article appeared in print on page 30 of the December 24th, 2014 edition of Hamodia.