{"id":2243,"date":"2010-06-07T18:22:22","date_gmt":"2010-06-07T18:22:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/2010\/06\/israel-unearths-3500-year-old.php"},"modified":"2010-06-07T18:22:22","modified_gmt":"2010-06-07T18:22:22","slug":"israel-unearths-3500-year-old","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2010\/06\/israel-unearths-3500-year-old","title":{"rendered":"Israel Unearths 3,500-Year-Old Pagan Artifacts"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>JERUSALEM &#8211; Archaeologists have unearthed a cache of rare, 35-century-old religious artifacts once used in pagan rituals, Israeli officials said Monday.<br \/>\nThe items were found during an excavation ordered by the Israel Antiquities Authority along the route of a new gas line in the country&#8217;s north. Excavating a rock hollow, archeologists found more than 100 intact artifacts, including a vessel for burning incense and the sculpted face of a woman that was part of a cup used in a pagan religious ceremony.<br \/>\n&#8220;This is my 42nd excavation in 15 years and the first time I&#8217;ve found more than shards,&#8221; said Edwin van den Brink, the archaeologist who directed the excavation. He said he expected to find artifacts, but not the amount or quality they uncovered.<br \/>\nSome of the small vessels were used to carry precious liquids from Cyprus and Mycenae, Greece, 3,500 years ago. These vessels were replicated by people in those areas, illustrating a link between the regions, van den Brink said.<br \/>\nVan den Brink said they might have been used in a nearby temple. They were deposited in the hole either to be preserved from a fire that swept through the region at the end of the Late Bronze Age, or they were buried because they were no longer in use.<br \/>\nYossi Garfinkel, a professor of archaeology at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem who was not involved in the dig, said holy articles could not be thrown out and were buried instead.<br \/>\n&#8220;It is quite possible that these artifacts were used in the cultic area and in the temple and they accumulated, and when they ran out of space or they became old, a pit was made to bury them,&#8221; Garfinkel said.<br \/>\nThe Antiquities Authority plans to exhibit the artifacts in the coming year.<br \/>\n<em>Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>JERUSALEM &#8211; Archaeologists have unearthed a cache of rare, 35-century-old religious artifacts once used in pagan rituals, Israeli officials said Monday. The items were found during an excavation ordered by the Israel Antiquities Authority along the route of a new gas line in the country&#8217;s north. Excavating a rock hollow, archeologists found more than 100&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2243","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Israel Unearths 3,500-Year-Old Pagan Artifacts<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2010\/06\/israel-unearths-3500-year-old\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Israel Unearths 3,500-Year-Old Pagan Artifacts\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"JERUSALEM &#8211; Archaeologists have unearthed a cache of rare, 35-century-old religious artifacts once used in pagan rituals, Israeli officials said Monday. The items were found during an excavation ordered by the Israel Antiquities Authority along the route of a new gas line in the country&#8217;s north. Excavating a rock hollow, archeologists found more than 100&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2010\/06\/israel-unearths-3500-year-old\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Beliefnet News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-06-07T18:22:22+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"mconsoli\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Israel Unearths 3,500-Year-Old Pagan Artifacts","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2010\/06\/israel-unearths-3500-year-old","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Israel Unearths 3,500-Year-Old Pagan Artifacts","og_description":"JERUSALEM &#8211; Archaeologists have unearthed a cache of rare, 35-century-old religious artifacts once used in pagan rituals, Israeli officials said Monday. The items were found during an excavation ordered by the Israel Antiquities Authority along the route of a new gas line in the country&#8217;s north. Excavating a rock hollow, archeologists found more than 100&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2010\/06\/israel-unearths-3500-year-old","og_site_name":"Beliefnet News","article_published_time":"2010-06-07T18:22:22+00:00","author":"mconsoli","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2010\/06\/israel-unearths-3500-year-old","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2010\/06\/israel-unearths-3500-year-old","name":"Israel Unearths 3,500-Year-Old Pagan Artifacts","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website"},"datePublished":"2010-06-07T18:22:22+00:00","dateModified":"2010-06-07T18:22:22+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/9cadc277e135f295b85f71137e2447a6"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2010\/06\/israel-unearths-3500-year-old#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2010\/06\/israel-unearths-3500-year-old"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2010\/06\/israel-unearths-3500-year-old#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Israel Unearths 3,500-Year-Old Pagan Artifacts"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/","name":"Beliefnet News","description":"Top Religious News From Around the World","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/9cadc277e135f295b85f71137e2447a6","name":"mconsoli","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/2ad\/2ad44a0d65de6022a5c619dffa5e7fddx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/2ad\/2ad44a0d65de6022a5c619dffa5e7fddx96.jpg","caption":"mconsoli"},"description":"\"Moderation is the center wherein all philosophies, both human and divine, meet.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d -Benjamin Disraeli","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/author\/mconsoli"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2243","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2243"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2243\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}