menorah

Archaeologists from Israel’s Antiquities Authority have announced an intriguing new discovery. In the city of Beit Shemesh, just 22 kilometers (14 miles) west of Jerusalem in Israel, they unearthed a ceramic workshop that contained hundreds of unused and beautifully preserved ceramic lamps, along with the stone lamp molds used to make them. They also found a bountiful collection of terracotta (ceramic) figurines, which were decorated with images of animals, women, and men on horseback. The archaeologists were able to date the ancient oil lamps to the 4th century AD, when the area was under the political control of the Eastern Roman Empire (better known as the Byzantine Empire). [[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"80796","attributes":{"alt":"The stash of ancient clay oil lamps were found next to a