CBN News by Julie Stahl 10/22/2021
Just north of the City of David (ancient Jerusalem), archaeologists believe they have found the first of its kind engraving on a precious gem of a biblical plant known to many as the Balm of Gilead.
Deep underground in a 2,000-year-old drainage ditch next to Jerusalem’s Western Wall, archaeologists say a rare artifact from Second Temple times was uncovered.
“It is a stone seal made of semi-precious amethyst stone with an engraving of a dove and a branch of a tree with fruit on the branch,” said Eli Shukron, former archaeologist of the Israel Antiquities Authority.
“What was surprising was that the branch is a branch with fruits that are not recognized from other seals from that period,” Shukon explained.
“Once we found the seal with the branch and the fruit, we hypothesized that it was the biblical persimmon fruit plant as mentioned in the Bible and in the sources of the Second Temple period and the Byzantine period,” Shukron said.
More:
https://www1.cbn.com/cbnnews/israel/2021/october/archaeologists-find-rare-lsquo-balm-of-gilead-rsquo-gemstone-near-jerusalem-rsquo-s-western-wall
