On Shikhin and its pottery works

FOR HANUKKAH: Lost Village of Shikhin and Its Oil Lamp Industry Discovered in Israel. On the green hills of Galilee in the shadow of Sepphoris, archaeologists found the village recorded by Josephus and Jewish sources, and its synagogue (Ruth Schuster, Haaretz).

Standing on the weathered ruins of the synagogue of Shikhin, one can see the great city of Sepphoris it served, just a mile to the south.

The name Shikhin stems from the Hebrew word for cave, today denoting a dugout for soldiers. Yet, it's hard to think of a less baleful place than this ancient Jewish village nestled amid the rolling hills of the Lower Galilee, which existed from about the second century B.C.E. Its raison d'etreO wasn't to fight the good fight but to serve the pottery needs of Sepphoris (Tzipori in Hebrew) and the wider Galilee until it was abandoned – apparently in the third century.

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A long and informative article

PaleoJudaica posts on the ancient village of Shikhin are here and links, here, and here. And for posts on nearby Sepphoris (Zipori//Tzipori/Tzippori/Zippori), where an impressive oil-lamp lantern was recently excavated, start here and follow the links.

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