2,200-year-old bronze incense shovel, jug found near Sea of Galilee
The Israel Antiquities Authority announced last week that they have found a pair of 2,200-year-old artifacts in the Biblical town of Magdala aka Migdal.
The artifacts are a bronze jug and a matching bronze incense shovel, dated to the time of the Second Temple. According to The Times of Israel, these were discovered one on top of the other in a storeroom near the pier at an archeological site in the western shore of the Sea of Galilee.
"At the beginning of the study we assumed that the shovel was used only as a cultic object for treating coals and incense used in ritual ceremonies," chief archaeologist Dina Avshalom-Gorni said in a statement, quoted by Time of Israel. "Over the years, after incense shovels were found with no cultic context, it would appear that the incense shovel was also used as a tool of daily use."
Incense shovels, explained Avshalom-Gorni in a report by Breaking News Israel, were initially used by ancient religions for rituals and other religious purposes. The concept was eventually adapted by Judaism.
"We know that these are certainly sacred tools, perhaps pertaining to the local synagogue discovered on this site, a synagogue which was quite grand and rich and important in the region," Avshalom-Gorni said of the artifacts."It's a rare and exciting find."
The Second Temple period is dated between 530 BC and 70 AD, and it was when the parties or sects of Zealots, Pharisees and Sadducees were formed. The period saw the destruction of Judah and the exile of Judeans to Babylon; the rise of Hellenism; and the Roman occupation and declaration by the Roman Senate of Herod as King of Judea.
Magdala, meanwhile, is said to be the place where Mary Magdalene came from.
The land being explored by the archaeologists is owned by a private developer from the Catholic Church who initially intended to build a hotel. However, they realized that the place is a major archeological site, and since 2009, archeologists have already unearthed many artifacts. The latest find was discovered volunteers from Chile.
