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
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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.
Historical Context: Jerusalem in the First Century CE
In the mid-first century CE, Jerusalem was a bustling center of Jewish
life under Roman occupation, with the Second Temple serving as the focal
point of religious and social activity. The city was divided into areas
like the Upper City on the Western Hill, home to the elite, including
priestly families who held significant power and wealth. Among these was
the Kathros (or Katros) family, one of 24 priestly lineages responsible
for Temple duties, as referenced in the Talmud (Pesachim 57a). However,
the Talmud also criticizes the Kathros family—along with others like
Cantheras, Boethus, and Phiabi—for corruption, nepotism, and oppression
of the common people, likening their "pens" to tools of slander and
their actions to destructive forces. This elite neighborhood, populated
by nobility, stood in contrast to the growing unrest fueled by Roman
policies, including heavy taxation, land seizures, and cultural
insensitivity, which ultimately sparked widespread rebellion.
The
Great Revolt and the Destruction of 70 CE
Tensions erupted into the
First Jewish Revolt (66–70 CE), a desperate uprising against Roman rule.
By 70 CE, under the command of Titus (son of Emperor Vespasian), Roman
legions besieged Jerusalem for seven months. The siege was brutal: The
Temple was destroyed on the 9th of Av (around August 28, 70 CE), and
flames spread to the Lower City. The Upper City, including the area of
the Burnt House, held out for another month before falling on the 8th of
Elul (September 20, 70 CE). According to the historian Josephus in The
Jewish War (VI, 8–10), Roman soldiers looted homes, slaughtered
inhabitants, and set fires that choked the alleys with smoke and
corpses, reducing much of the city to ruins. The Burnt House, likely a
workshop and residence for the Kathros family, was engulfed in this
conflagration. Evidence suggests the fire was fueled by flammable
materials like oil, producing thick soot and charring wooden beams and
stone walls to vivid colors—white, gray, red, and yellow from the
intense heat. The destruction sealed the site's contents undisturbed for
centuries, preserving a frozen moment of chaos.
Discovery and
Excavation
The site remained buried until the late 20th century.
Following the 1967 Six-Day War, when Israel regained control of the Old
City from Jordanian forces, large-scale excavations began in the Jewish
Quarter, which had been left in ruins since the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.
Led by archaeologist Nahman Avigad starting in 1969–1970, the digs aimed
to uncover Second Temple-era remains before rebuilding the quarter. In
January 1970, a trench revealed a beaten-earth floor covered in ash,
soot, charred wood, and fire-damaged stones at about a meter deep.
Systematic excavation exposed the basement of a larger structure
spanning around 55 square meters, including a small stone-paved
courtyard, three medium-sized rooms, a kitchen with a crude hearth and
pottery oven, a stepped ritual bath (mikvah) for priestly purification,
and an unburnt small room possibly used for storage. The northern and
western extents were limited by modern buildings and earlier ruins, but
the findings evoked strong emotions among the team, with Avigad noting
they were unprepared for the vivid impressions of devastation. The site
was transformed into a museum in the 1970s, now managed as part of the
Company for the Reconstruction and Development of the Jewish Quarter.
The excavated ruins of the Burnt House, showing soot-blackened walls and
scattered artifacts, provide a tangible glimpse into the site's
preserved state.
Key Artifacts and Findings
The destruction
layer yielded a wealth of artifacts confirming the house's priestly and
affluent status, all dated to the first century CE through pottery
styles and coins from Roman procurators and the Revolt (Years 2–4, up to
69 CE). Notable items include:
Inscribed Stone Weight: A 10 cm
diameter weight engraved in Aramaic/Hebrew with "[of] Bar Kathros" (or
"son of Kathros"), directly linking the site to the infamous priestly
family and corroborating Talmudic references.
Weapons and Tools: An
iron spear found leaning against a corner, suggesting last-minute
defense preparations, alongside iron nails, ink wells, and a mold for
minting coins.
Household Items: Imported pottery and glass, stone
vessels (including tables and jars resistant to impurity under Jewish
law), kitchen utensils, dishes, a grinding stone, Roman lamps, and
everyday bowls buried in ash.
Human Remains: The most haunting
discovery was the skeletal lower arm and hand of a young woman in her
early twenties, found in the kitchen doorway. She appears to have
collapsed while fleeing, reaching for a step as the flames overtook her;
the bones were later buried according to Jewish tradition, but a photo
remains on display.
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.
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.
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.