Page 43 - Holyland Magazine - 2017 Edition

takes us back 2,700 years; and the third is a Herodian Quarter. Photo: Company for The Burnt House.Photo: Company for
new project designed to upgrade the visitor the Reconstruction and Development the Reconstruction and Development
experience in the Jewish Quarter. of the Jewish Quarter of the Jewish Quarter

The Burnt House: civil war and a 43
war of destruction

The Burnt House in the Jewish Quarter
was discovered during excavations by a
team headed by Prof. Nahman Avigad.
It became an immediate sensation, as a
testimony to brutal destruction, including
a fire that caused the roof of the structure
to collapse, leaving it a heap of ruins. This
was the first piece of evidence ever found
in Jerusalem of the war that culminated
in the destruction of Jerusalem and the
Second Temple in 70 C.E. Following the
announcement of the discovery, crowds
of photographers and curious spectators
gathered to watch in silence as excavation
team members climbed up out of the ruins,
perspiring and blackened with the ashes of
the two-millenia-old destruction. The story of
the Burnt House made newspaper headlines
around the world.

The final report of the archaeological
excavation of the Jewish Quarter offers a
more complex picture of the Burnt House.
It turns out that part of the structure was
destroyed even before the Romans captured
the upper city of Jerusalem in 70 C.E.
Residents of the city settled over the ruins,
remaining there until the Roman conquest
and the destruction. The most likely
explanation for this new and surprising twist
in the story has its source in the writings of
Josephus, a historian of the late Second
Temple period, who described the civil war
waged among the different Jewish sects
during the Roman siege. For the first time
we may now possess evidence of the tragic
results of this civil war, which also destroyed
part of the Burnt House.

Greetings from King Hezekiah

Excavations conducted by archaeologist
Eilat Mazar in the Ophel region in 2010
produced a unique discovery: a bulla (seal
impression on a piece of clay) featuring the
name “Hezekiah [son of] Ahaz King of Judah.”
The bulla was discovered in a refuse dump
dating to the late First Temple Period. Along
with the inscription, the bulla also shows a
winged sun, flanked by the Egyptian 'ankh'
hieroglyphic, symbolizing life. Bullae were