A rare and fascinating discovery of pearl-like caves containing ancient relics has been unearthed in an ancient passageway.
The pearls you’re referring to are a type of “speleothem” – mineral formations that develop in caves through the interaction of moving water.
In contrast to better-known speleothems, like stalactites and stalagmites, cave pearls usually have a spherical shape and tend to be free-standing, rather than attached to the floor, walls, or ceiling.
They are typically under 30cm wide and are discovered in shallow pools of water in limestone caves. These formations are created when layers of calcite build up around a core, usually a piece of rock or a fragment of mud.
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What makes this discovery quite thrilling is that 14 of the discovered pearls have a core of pottery, with two of them originating from ceramic lamps, and two others coming from plaster material.
Researchers have made a groundbreaking discovery for the first time by uncovering archaeological artifacts inside cave pearls.
Until now, cave pearls from archaeological sites have never been studied by archaeologists.
Researchers have discovered cave pearls while exploring a tunnel leading to the Jwoeizeh spring in the Jerusalem hills area.
A spring tunnel is a historical underground passage, created to harness water from higher levels of underground reservoirs, known as perched aquifers.
The southern Levant region contains one of the longest and oldest spring tunnels that has been discovered in that area, and is believed to have originated around the early 7th to the 8th centuries BC.
It might have been a part of a royal estate.
In 2017, a research team originally looking elsewhere stumbled upon an entry to a previously sealed section of a tunnel while conducting a survey.
Archaeologists discovered the pearls buried in this approximately 23-foot segment, which was filled with soil and debris. Alongside the pearls was an unbroken oil lamp, believed to be from ancient times, specifically the 3rd to 4th centuries AD.
The majority of the pottery centers have been found to have originated in the Hellenistic period, which ran from approximately 333 to 63 BC, or during the later Roman and Byzantine periods, from 63 BC up to the 7th century AD.
The plaster cores, on the other hand, are estimated to have originated during the Hellenistic period.
One of the pottery samples appears to be older than the others, possibly dating back to the Persian Empire (around 535-333 BC) or Babylonian Empire (586-535 BC), and in some cases, even spanning the Iron Age.
Archaeologists have discovered evidence that the ancient tunnels were renovated during the Hellenistic era, with oil lamps serving as the primary sources of light for navigating through them.
The remains also offer insight into where the tunnels originally came from.
According to our research, archaeological evidence suggests that the tunnel was initially built some 2,800-2,700 years ago in the Iron Age period.
In addition, the analysis also provides an initial dating of the artifacts inside the pearls, which indicates that the tunnel underwent a rebuilding phase during the Hellenistic era.
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