The Burnt House (Jerusalem)

The Burnt House Jerusalem

Location: Jerusalem

Josephus Flavius, War VI 8 5:

"... set fire to the houses whither the Jews were fled, and burnt every soul in them, and laid waste a great many of the rest

 

Tiferet Yisrael Street
Tel. (02) 628 7211
Open: 9am- 4:20pm Sun- Thu
9am- 12:20pm Fri

 

The Burned House is a Jewish homestead that was destroyed by the invading Roman army during Jewish revolt of 70 AD. As Josephus Flavius notes in his historic work much of the ancient city of Jerusalem was laid to waste. At the same time it gave us a rare chance to witness the lives of common people since their lives and their physical surroundings got covered by subsequent archaeological layers. The house contained kitchen, several rooms and a Mikvah. Furthermore many coins were found on the site. Some date to the time of the Roman rule, while others were issued by the rebels. An interesting detail in the house was a finding of a stone weight that is just 4 inches (about 10 cm) in diameter. In contained Hebrew inscription of "Bar Kathros" or "Son of Kathros". So it is logical to assume that the house belonged to the Kathros family. According to the story found in Talmud written centuries later this family was a religious family with a position of priesthood held by its members. However they abused it and eventually lost this honour.

 

The house

In Herodian times (37 BC to 70 AD), the building was quite a luxurious property with sides of about 13 to 15 meters and had several floors. Archaeological evidence here and elsewhere in the upper town suggests that this entire area of ​​the town was destroyed in a major fire with intense heat, burning all organic materials including the wooden floors of the upper floors. Their loss made the walls unstable and caused the house to collapse.

An inner courtyard and the ground floor with a kitchen, a mikvah and four rooms (probably workshops) have been preserved. The plastered walls are up to 1 m high; the floor made of beaten earth shows burn marks. The individual finds have been rearranged for the presentation in the museum; the room now used as a kitchen was originally used for other purposes, the actual kitchen of the house is under the visitors' podium.

In addition, Avigad's team also uncovered an Iron Age II stretcher-truss wall 11 m long, 1.2 m wide and a maximum of about 3 m high. She is not on display in today's exhibition.

 

Opening

After the Six-Day War in 1967, the Jewish Quarter came under Israeli control and appeared in ruins after 19 years of Jordanian rule.

The restoration of the quarter took place in parallel with major archaeological work in 1969-1982 under the auspices of the Department of Archeology of the Hebrew University and the Department of Antiquities of Israel, headed by Dr. Neman Avidad.

The house was discovered in December 1969 under a layer of ash and rubble. The excavations continued from January 4 to February 20, 1970. They showed that only a small part of the residential building was found, the rest is located under the existing and currently residential buildings of the Jewish Quarter.

 

Finds

Stoves, basalt mortars, cooking pots and many products from the Jerusalem stone cutter workshops were found. According to Roland Deins' thesis, which has become generally accepted, such stone vessels were specially created to meet the requirements of Jewish religious law, because stone, in contrast to ceramics, cannot assume any cultic impurity. However, stone vessels were expensive, so that in the household living here a high interest in cultic purity on the one hand and prosperity on the other can be assumed; both fit the Jerusalem priestly aristocracy.

The stone cutter workshops offered the following household items: large stone vases, measuring cups, stone boxes, vessel lids and tables (for the wealthy population). The house of the Qathros family provided evidence that such objects were not decoration but served everyday use in an environment keen on cultic purity.

With the arrival of the Romans, stone cutting and turning in the Jerusalem area experienced a strong upswing. This also had to do with new processing technologies that were now available, but above all these stone vessels were useful “in the service of the purity laws, the importance of which also increased rapidly in everyday life, probably not least in connection with the new, partly from the Babylonian diaspora that Herod brought to Palestine after he came to power.”

Interest in stone vessels spread from Jerusalem, in the immediate vicinity of the Temple, to populations imitating the lifestyle of the Jerusalem priesthood. Hence there are corresponding vessels at Qumran as well as in Pharisaic households, which is also mentioned in passing in the New Testament (John 2:6 EU).

The Qathros family
Of particular interest to the excavators was a stone weight with the Aramaic inscription דבר קתרס, "belonging to the Qathros family." A family with this name is ingloriously mentioned in the Talmud (Pesachim 57a) as one of several families of the priestly aristocracy:
"Woe to me for the house of Qathros, woe to me for their pen! … For they are high priests, their sons treasurers, and their sons-in-law overseers of the temple, and their servants beat the people with sticks.”

In addition to perfume bottles, two Roman cameos depicting a scorpion and the god Mercury point to wealthy residents. Ronny Reich suspects that the fire debris was searched by looters so that larger valuable objects that had survived the fire were salvaged. This resulted in a concentration of relatively simple household appliances that were of no interest to looters and do not fully document the lifestyle in the house of Qathros.

Traces of the destruction of Jerusalem
The house of the Qathros family was apparently destroyed when the Romans conquered Jerusalem: this is indicated by the layer of ash, charred wood, broken vessels, spearheads, the remains of a lance and a severed arm of a woman's skeleton. The latter is the only skeletal find in the city that can be linked to the fighting in 70 AD.

The following coins from the Jewish War were found here: 29 are dated to the 2nd year (of the Jewish War, beginning 66 AD), 10 to the 3rd year and three to the 4th year (final coin 69 AD). ). This finding fits with the fact that the upper city of Jerusalem was destroyed in the summer of 70 AD.

 

Meaning

This building is a testament to the destruction of Jerusalem.

This can be understood from the stones, badly burnt by fire, from the remains of burnt wood, and from the layer of ash and soot, which testify to the destruction and fire during the capture of the upper city by the Romans.

 

Museum

Today's museum is called The Burnt House Museum - Beit Katros. A multilingual presentation, which also uses lighting technology to indicate the destructive fire, familiarizes visitors with the ancient history of the house. It lasts about 30 minutes and, in addition to historical documentation, contains reenacted scenes of a Jerusalem family in which various attitudes towards resistance, violence and defense are discussed at first – in apparent security. During this "family drama" comes the news that the temple, believed to be indestructible, is on fire and chaotic battles have begun, in which the sons bravely defended the city. Towards the end, the ancient Jewish family articulates their dream that one day their children could play in this place again.