Unexpected ancient complex emerges near biblical city linked to Jonah and St Peter
A major archaeological discovery in central Israel is shedding new light on the region's bustling commercial life more than a millennium ago.
The Israel Antiquities Authority announced earlier this month that researchers in Ramat Gan, a city just east of Tel Aviv, have unearthed a large industrial and commercial complex dating to the seventh or eighth century A.D. The find was made during a pre-construction excavation ahead of the development of a new bus terminal.
According to excavation directors Yoav Arbel and Lior Rauchberger, the remains point to a settlement that was anything but improvised. The complex featured straight, intersecting streets with a series of adjoining rooms that had served as shops, warehouses, and plastered industrial facilities. Several pottery kilns were also found at the site.
"The excavation uncovered an organized, planned complex featuring straight, intersecting streets," the directors said in a joint statement. "Lining these streets were a series of rooms that served as shops or warehouses, plastered industrial facilities, pottery kilns and more."
The site sits along a corridor that once linked Jaffa, Ramla, and Jerusalem, a major artery in the region during the early Islamic period. The directors believe the complex may have stood on a secondary road branching off that main route, and that its location was no accident. Fertile farmland and reliable water sources would have made the area attractive to traders and craftspeople.
Officials said the scale and quality of the construction suggest that regional authorities were involved, possibly even funding or directing the project themselves.
Artifacts pulled from the site paint a vivid picture of daily commerce. Among the finds were bronze tableware, cosmetic implements, iron pickaxe heads, a sickle, dozens of nails, numerous coins, and a large quantity of pottery and glass vessel fragments, some of which originated from outside the region.
"Together, these finds provide a vivid reflection of the period's culture, trade and economy," the Antiquities Authority said.
The complex operated for roughly 150 years before being abandoned under circumstances that archaeologists say remain unclear. It was resettled in the 10th century, with new residential buildings and production facilities going up alongside clay-baking ovens known as tabuns. That second chapter came to an end in the late 11th century, shortly before the arrival of the Crusaders, and the site was never inhabited again.
The era in which the complex was first built, spanning the Umayyad and Abbasid caliphates, was a period of remarkable cultural and religious diversity across the region. Muslim, Christian, Jewish, and Samaritan communities all lived in the area at the time, though researchers have not yet determined which group or groups operated the Ramat Gan site.
The discovery is the latest in a string of significant finds announced across Israel in recent months. Earlier this summer, archaeologists near Binyamina uncovered two Roman-era marble statues dating to roughly 1,700 years ago. Before that, researchers near Jerusalem identified an ancient tunnel close to a site associated with the biblical Kingdom of Judah.