No word on the date of the beam fragment. I imagine it would be hard to date. There won't be many ancient ones to compare with it. Wood deteriorates too easily. And it has been buried out of its original context for a long time, so I doubt that radiocarbon dating woud be reliable. But it's not my area of expertise. We'll see.
Cross-file under Material Culture.
Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.
