The Stone Vessel Industry in the Second Temple Period: Excavations at Ḥizma and the Jerusalem Temple Mount

Hundreds of chalk stone vessels have been found during excavations at Second Temple period sites within Jerusalem. Originally linked to Jewish religious laws where the vessels were used in religious ceremonies concerned with purity, they eventually became everyday domestic vessels. This volume reports on the discovery of a quarry and workshops at Hizma, northeast of Jerusalem, which provided important evidence on production techniques and chronology, showing the vessels to have been produced between the later 1st century BC and c.70AD until the destruction of Jerusalem. This in turn enabled a typology to be constructed. The distribution of chalk stone vessels is also mapped. This book is an upated English version of an earlier book published in Hebrew in 1976 by Magen, and includes up-to-date evidence from recent excavations.