2,000-year-old Maccabean-era fortress unearthed in Jerusalem after century-long search [View all]

[shira]

Acra fortification, built by Hanukkah villain Antiochus IV Epiphanes, maintained Seleucid Greek control over Temple until its conquest by Hasmoneans in 141 BCE



In what archaeologists are describing as “a solution to one of the great archaeological riddles in the history of Jerusalem,” researchers with the Israel Antiquities Authority announced Tuesday that they have found the remnants of a fortress used by the Seleucid Greek king Antiochus Epiphanes in his siege of Jerusalem in 168 BCE.

A section of fortification was discovered under the Givati parking lot in the City of David south of the Old City walls and the Temple Mount. The fortification is believed to have been part of a system of defenses known as the Acra fortress, built by Antiochus as he sought to quell a Jewish priestly rebellion centered on the Temple.

Antiochus is remembered in the Jewish tradition as the villain of the Hanukkah holiday who sought to ban Jewish religious rites, sparking the Maccabean revolt....

...The discovery of the Acra’s foundations ends over a century of intense speculation over its location, the archaeologists said Tuesday. The fortress is mentioned in the Book of Maccabees I and II, and by the Roman-era Jewish historian Josephus.

http://www.timesofisrael.com/maccabean-era-fortress-unearthed-in-jerusalem-after-century-long-search/