Ancient City Found In Israel During Off-Ramp Construction
Israeli archaeologists work at the ancient site of En Esur (Ein Asawir) where a 5000-year-old city was uncovered, near the Israeli town of Harish. Image by Getty
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Archaeological excavations in northern Israel in preparation to build a highway off-ramp uncovered a 5,000-year-old city that was home to as many as 6,000 residents.
It is one of the first and largest early Bronze Age settlements excavated in Israel, according to the Israel Antiquities Authority, which announced the discovery on Sunday.
“This is the Early Bronze Age New York of our region; a cosmopolitan and planned city where thousands of inhabitants lived,” Itai Elad, Yitzhak Paz and Dina Shalem, directors of the excavation, said in a statement.
The antiquities were discovered during massive excavations, initiated by Netivei Israel-the National Transport Infrastructure Company, which was carrying out groundwork for construction of an interchange road to the new Israeli city of Harish.
The excavations have been in progress for two and a half years. Deeper excavations found that the ancient city was built over an even more ancient 7,000-year-old settlement.
The attraction for both settlements appears to be two abundant springs originating in the area in antiquity, according to the IAA.
About 5,000 teenagers and volunteers participated in the excavations as part of the authority’s Sharing Heritage Project.
“There is no doubt that this site dramatically changes what we know about the character of the period and the beginning of urbanization in Israel,” the excavation directors said.
The new interchange will be built high above the ruins, preserving it for future generations.
The post 5,000-year-old metropolis discovered in northern Israel appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
PJ Grisar is the Forward’s culture fellow. He can be reached at Grisar@Forward.com.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
