Archaeologists of the Department of Antiquities, leading excavations in the ancient Caesarea, today presented to the general public a unique find: a plate made from the shell of a pearl shell.
It engraved the Jewish seven-candlestick and the instrument from the inventory of the Temple, presumably "mahta" (or in the synodal translation of the "charcoal"), a special ash collector on the altar.
Archaeologists can not yet accurately date this small plate, which, apparently, was part of the decoration of the cover of the Book of Torah, or "aron a-kodesh" (synagogue ark for storing the Torah scrolls) in the synagogue that existed in Caesarea in the late Roman era, that is, 5th century AD
Excavator leader Peter Gandelman does not exclude that the plate was made in the era of the Second Temple. It is known that in Caesarea, the administrative center of the Roman province of Judea (renamed by Herod the Great in honor of Octavianus Augustus), there was a large Jewish community that clashed with the Greek-Syrian majority.
This community was destroyed last during the Great Uprising in the 60s. AD