Second Day of Hanukkah Archeology - Maccabee mansion hiding under modern home
Israel 21C 29.11.2021
When Theo and Miriam Siebenberg built a house in Jerusalem’s Old City in 1970, Theo had a hunch that ancient Jewish leaders had inhabited this area close to the Temple Mount.
Eighteen years of digging confirmed that the Siebenberg house sits on several layers of Jewish history going back about 3,000 years.
Among these layers are the remains of a Hasmonean mansion that Biblical Archaeology Review called “an engineering and structural marvel.”
The Siebenbergs turned the excavations under their home into a museum.
Visitors can see 200-pound stones from the ancient mansion piled along one wall as a tangible “memorial to the Maccabee house that stood here 2,000 years ago,” Miriam Siebenberg told ISRAEL21c.
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