A stone tool workshop from the Second Temple period was discovered on Mount Scopus in Jerusalem during an investigation by the Israel Antiquities Authority into a gang of antiquities thieves, the IAA announced on Monday.
The workshop was discovered at the Ras Tamim archaeological site on the eastern slope of Mount Scopus.
After noting suspicious activity at the site, including unauthorized attempts at excavation, the IAA’s Theft Prevention Unit began a series of ambush and surveillance operations to identify and arrest the suspects.
Five alleged suspects were arrested by the unit late at night at the site while in possession of extensive excavation equipment, including a generator, quarrying tools, and a metal detector.
Some were caught in an underground cave, with others acting as lookouts, according to the IAA's statement.
All five were transferred to the authorities and questioned before eventually confessing. They are expected to be charged with damaging and illegally excavating an antiquities site, punishable by up to five years in prison.
Following the arrest, IAA inspectors investigated the cave in which the thieves were found.
Inside the cave, the IAA discovered a two-thousand-year-old workshop containing hundreds of stone vessel fragments, production waste, and unfinished items, reinforcing researchers' belief in the site's importance to Jewish pilgrims who would have been making their way to Jerusalem from this direction at the time.
The finds are currently on display at the Jay and Jeanie Schottenstein National Campus for the Archaeology of Israel in Jerusalem as part of the “Criminal Past” exhibit, revealing for the first time the complexities of antiquities looting in Israel and the fight against it.
Importance of the site
“Workshops for producing chalk limestone vessels from the Second Temple period are already known in the Judean hills,” Deputy Director of the IAA’s Theft Prevention Unit Dr. Eitan Klein said. “The discovery of this workshop is particularly important, because now a broad picture of the region is emerging.”
He added that tombs, a limestone quarry, and large water reservoirs, including a mivkah, dated to the same era had also been found.
Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu emphasized the site's importance, noting that the workshop’s discovery reinforced the idea that Jerusalem is more than a vast archaeological site. It is also “a window into a world preserved deep within the ground, waiting for us,” he said.
“Now, as the earth returns what it safeguarded for us, we are obliged to give back – to protect every root, every vessel, every layer,” he said. “Attempts by our enemies to loot antiquities are not crimes of financial theft, but efforts to steal our identity.”
“We will not allow this, and will continue to act decisively to preserve and safeguard what has always been ours, and always will be.”
Further details are available on the Israel Antiquities Authority website.