Rare 1,300-Year-Old Lead Menorah Pendant Unearthed in Jerusalem Dig
A palm-sized pendant cast almost entirely from lead and stamped on both sides with a seven-branched menorah has been unearthed in Jerusalem’s Davidson Archaeological Park, in an excavation led in recent years by the Israel Antiquities Authority with the City of David Foundation and the Company for the Restoration and Development of the Jewish Quarter. The artifact—dated to the sixth to early seventh centuries CE, during the Late Byzantine period—was found in rubble inside a building later sealed under roughly 8 meters of fill laid down during early eighth-century Umayyad construction nearby.
Researchers say the discovery is striking not only for its age and location—beneath the southwestern corner of the Temple Mount area, north of the City of David—but for its rarity. “A pendant made of pure lead, decorated with a menorah, is an exceptionally rare find,” said Israel Antiquities Authority researchers Dr. Yuval Baruch, Dr. Filip Vukosavović, Esther Rakow-Mellet, and Dr. Shulamit Terem, noting that only one comparable lead menorah pendant is known, held by the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore.
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The menorah, long tied to the destroyed Second Temple, became a powerful emblem of Jewish memory after Rome’s destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE. That symbolism collides with historical accounts that Jews faced restrictions on entering the city under Byzantine Christian rule. Baruch called the pendant “a personal seal, an emblem of memory and identity,” adding that it suggests “they did not stop coming” to Jerusalem even under prohibitions, and that lead may indicate an amulet rather than jewelry.
Israeli Minister of Heritage Rabbi Amichai Eliyahu said the find reflects “the continuity and devotion of the Jewish people in the city.” The pendant is set to go on public display during Hanukkah as part of Heritage Week at the Jay and Jeanie Schottenstein National Campus for the Archaeology of Israel in Jerusalem.
