Following in her late grandfather’s footsteps, Hebrew University archaeologist Eilat Mazar has identified the oldest synagogue in Jerusalem—a room in a structure dubbed “the House of Menoroth” (House of Menorahs, or Candelabra). The building was discovered by Benjamin Mazar, who in 1967 began excavations at the southwestern corner of the Temple Mount, an area now set aside as an archaeological park.

An engraved cross on the building’s lintel led scholars to conclude that it was originally a Christian public building from the Byzantine period. According to the younger Mazar, however, the paintings of seven-branched menorahs that cover the walls of one room suggest that the building was later reused for Jewish worship. The ubiquity of glass lamps, as well as indentations in the doorjambs likely used for mezzuzot (doorpost fixtures containing small Hebrew scrolls), leaves little doubt in her mind that the structure was briefly used as a Jewish public building during the period of Persian rule in the first part of the seventh century. (The second-earliest known synagogue in Jerusalem dates from the twelfth century.)

“Menoroth in a room like this can only mean a synagogue,” Mazar said. “People did not decorate their homes with so many menoroth, and you would never see such decorations in a classroom.”

Excerpted from Like Grandfather, Like Granddaughter: Oldest Synagogue in Jerusalem Identified in the online Biblical Archaeology Society Library.