Israel Antiquities Authority

Archaeologists say the stepped street served as Jerusalem’s main thoroughfare for pilgrims during the Second Temple period.

The event hosted more than 2,000 visitors, including soldiers, police officers, Holocaust survivors, and students from schools and kindergartens across the country.

The collection, hidden in a flowerpot on the suspect's balcony, included coins from the Hasmonean, Herodian, and Roman periods, the IAA said.

The ritual bath was found sealed beneath a layer of destruction dated to 70 CE, in which researchers found burned ash and numerous artifacts that offer a snapshot of life just before the city fell.

“Sites that appear on the surface as scattered stones suddenly become coherent, organized spaces, and it saves a lot of research time,” Dr. Yitzchak Jaffe said.

Cast almost entirely of lead, the pendant is decorated on both sides with an identical image of a menorah framed within a circular border.

Israel’s Heritage Minister, Rabbi Amichai Eliyahu, called the discovery: “tangible and moving evidence of Jerusalem’s might and stature during the Hasmonean period.”

As all these discoveries show, the land’s buried secrets have the power to transform our understanding of history, faith, and the human experience.

Dr. Jacob Vardi says the early bronze age site shows 'only exceptional individuals knew how to produce the Canaanite blades,' revealing a complex, specialized society.

The coins were unearthed in Hukok, an ancient Jewish settlement near the Sea of Galilee associated with Jewish resistance under Roman rule.