During excavations at the Har Hotzvim Hi-Tech Park in Jerusalem, archaeologists uncovered the largest Second Temple-era stone quarry, according to an announcement from the Israel Antiquities Authority on Thursday.
The quarry discovered on the appropriately named "Stonecutter's Mountain" helped give archaeologists a glimpse into Jerusalem's past before its destruction by the Romans in 70CE.
The site was identified as Jewish thanks to the discovery of two stone vessels connected to cleanliness in Jewish law; the archaeologists note that this is "a find which by its nature always signals the presence of a Jewish population."
Archaeologists excavated 3,500 square meters of earth in one section of the massive quarry.
They uncovered many stone building blocks as well as trenches and cuts which are used to outline which areas are to be quarried.
Huge stone blocks uncovered
"Most of the building stones extracted from here were huge rock slabs, whose length reached ca. 2.5 meters, their width was 1.2 meters, and they were 40 centimeters thick," said Michael Chernin and Lara Shilov, excavation directors on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority. "Each such quarried block weighed two-and-a-half tons!"
"It is reasonable to assume, with due caution, that at least some of the building stones extracted here were intended to be used as pavement slabs for Jerusalem’s streets in that period," say Chernin and Shilov.
Archaeologists confirmed this view after testing several paving stones found in Roman Jerusalem which were the same size and thickness as those in the quarry, as well as matching during geological tests.
Eli Escusido, Israel Antiquities Authority Director, said, "Revealing this huge quarry, just before the Nine Days and the Ninth of Av, the time of year when the Jewish People the world over mourn the Jerusalem that was lost in these days, is symbolic and very moving."