Palatial 2,000-Year-Old Public Building Revealed in Jerusalem

[Black Orchid]

An enormous building that hosted public functions and perhaps city government meetings in ancient Jerusalem is reopening to the public some 2,000 years after its construction.

The newly excavated structure, located next to the Israeli capital’s Western Wall, consists of two identical, elaborately decorated halls where dignitaries may have gathered while visiting the city and the Second Temple, reports Rossella Tercatin for the Jerusalem Post.

“This is, without a doubt, one of the most magnificent public buildings from the Second Temple period ever uncovered outside the Temple Mount walls in Jerusalem,” says excavation leader Shlomit Weksler-Bdolah in a statement.

British archaeologist Charles Warren first identified the building in the 19th century. Excavations and efforts to fully recover the structure moved forward in starts and stops over the next 150 or so years. Though archaeologists previously believed that the public center was built under the Hasmonean dynasty (roughly 143 to 37 B.C.), they now say that it dates to between 20 and 30 A.D.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-ne ... 180978128/

Awesome discovery. Tis a great pity we'll never be finding anything like this in Oz.

[billy the kid]

Whatya talkin about....
We've got a bridge and a rock...