Drainage channel profiles Jerusalem during Great Revolt

MATERIAL CULTURE: Detritus from ancient Jerusalem drainage channel captures moment of city’s destruction. Excavation reveals rare glass and ceramic vessels, oil lamps, tableware and food remains, offering insight into state of city in period before its sacking by Rome in 70 CE (Gavriel Fiske, Times of Israel).

This channel was usually cleaned regularly by municipal authorities, but the archaeologists found that it was half-filled with silt, indicating “a gradual neglect of city maintenance. And indeed, this very neglect and abandonment that we witness here corresponds to the story of the process of Jerusalem’s destruction,” said Dr. Ayelet Zilberstein, who directed the excavation.

I noted the discovery of the mentioned sword here.

Cross-file under Tisha B'Av.

Drainage channels in Jerusalem had preserved much information and many artifacts from the Second Temple Period and occasionally earlier. See here, here, here, here,here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

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