The rare 1,800-year-old artifact is featured in an exhibit marking renewed Jewish sovereignty and 60 years of Israel’s parliament.
A large stone storage vessel used by Jews in the Galilee during the Roman period nearly 1,800 years ago is on display as part of an exhibition marking the Knesset building’s 60th anniversary.
The vessel, standing about 80-centimeters (31.5-inches) high and 50-centimeters (19.5-inches) in diameter, was recently unearthed at the Pundaka de Lavi (“Lavi Inn”) site, located in the Lavi Forest near the Golani Junction in the Lower Galilee, by the Israel Antiquities Authority and KKL-JNF.
Stone vessels were important in ancient Jewish society because, unlike pottery, they could not become ritually impure under Jewish law, according to excavation director Noam Zilberberg, who called these types of large vessels “quite rare.”