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2,000-Year-Old, 3-Room Complex Uncovered near Western Wall in Jerusalem
(Times of Israel) Amanda Borschel-Dan - A two-millennia-old subterranean system of three rooms was recently uncovered near the Western Wall, chiseled by hand out of bedrock prior to the fall of Jerusalem in 70 CE, the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) announced Tuesday. The complex was hidden for centuries under a 1,400-year-old Byzantine structure's mosaic floor. Inside the rooms are what looks to be niches for shelves and storage, as well as doorjambs and lantern niches, chiseled into the bedrock. "We found clay cooking vessels, cores of oil lamps used for light, a stone mug unique to Second Temple Period Jewish sites, and a fragment of a qalal - a large stone basin used to hold water, thought to be linked to Jewish practices of ritual purity," IAA archaeologists said.