I'm standing on the crossroads
between Cana and Nazareth. Now, right here,
they're constructing a new railroad that's gonna lead the Israel Rail
to the city of Nazareth. But, while they were digging here, they stumbled upon ancient remains. How ancient?
2,000 years old. This is only possible in Israel, so stay tuned to find out what's in there. ♪ (music) ♪ (birds chirping) <i>Have you found anything here?</i> <i>I'm seeing something round there.</i> <i>- (Sergio) Are those--
- (Dr. Yonatan Adler) Yeah, yeah.</i> <i>(Sergio) 'Cause they don't
look natural, do they?</i> <i>- (Dr. Adler) No, no, no.
- (Sergio) Are those in situ right now?</i> <i>- (Dr. Adler) Yeah, yeah.
- (Sergio) Oh, this is so cool.</i> <i>That is so cool.</i> - This is a mug.<i>
- (Sergio) No way!</i> <i>I see that.
I see the handle.</i> <i>(Rhoda) Let us pause here for just a sec.</i> <i>Before we dig mugs out of the ground
and show you a discovery </i> <i>that could potentially change
what we know about them,</i> <i>let's take a few steps back to explain
why are we back here again.</i> <i>It all started about three years ago
when we came to this place</i> <i>where they were going to
construct a gas station</i> <i>and accidentally stumbled upon
an ancient quarry.</i> <i>(Dr. Adler) He was able to determine
that this was a quarry and a workshop</i> for the production of stone vessels. <i>(Rhoda) The quarry is believed to have served
as a 1st century stone vessel factory</i> <i>where they produced items
like cups and bowls</i> <i>that were used by the Jewish community.</i> So, this is the mug itself. <i>- (Sergio) And this is the real thing?</i>
- This is the real thing. <i>(Rhoda) While it was a fascinating discovery,</i> <i>they left the site without finding
any coins or pottery</i> <i>which would have provided
a more accurate dating.</i> <i>If you haven't seen that episode yet,</i> <i>we highly recommend you
to pause here, go watch it,</i> <i>then continue this video.</i> <i>(Dr. Adler) So, David Amit
had excavated here back in 2001,</i> he did a small probe, and he found that there was a small room higher up than where we were excavating, which indicated that there was
maybe a second floor. It wasn't clear exactly what was going on. Now, it's become clear
that there's actually two floors. <i>(Rhoda) Back in 2018, they thought
they'd excavated everything.</i> <i>But this year, thanks to
the new railway that is being laid,</i> <i>they were able to discover
that the ancient quarry</i> <i>actually had multiple floors,</i> <i>and its size is much larger
than previously thought.</i> <i>(Dr. Adler) So, most of
what we were excavating</i> <i>in the last bunch of seasons</i> <i>was the lower floor, the lower level.</i> And, I hadn't realized it at the time because the whole upper level
was destroyed by modern work. And here we're getting the upper level, <i>and the lower level is what
we're also finding as well,</i> <i>so we have actually these two levels.</i> It's actually a really, really large cave, so it's a pretty big system
of at least two caves. <i>(Sergio) Wow.
Have you found anything here?</i> <i>I'm seeing something round there.</i> <i>- Are those--
- (Dr. Adler) Yeah, yeah.</i> <i>(Sergio) 'Cause they don't
look natural, do they?</i> <i>- (Dr. Adler) No, no, no.
- (Sergio) Are those in situ right now?</i> <i>- (Dr. Adler) Yeah, yeah.
- (Sergio) That's insane.</i> <i>Oh, this is so cool.</i> <i>And this is beautiful.
No way!</i> <i>- (Dr. Adler) So, these are cores.
- (Sergio) Oh!</i> Each of these is a core. - It's the inside of the stone vessels.<i>
- (Sergio) Oh my goodness!</i> - This is a pour of a bowl.<i>
- (Sergio) This is beautiful.</i> <i>I've never seen this in situ.
I've seen it once you guys excavate--</i> <i>(Dr. Adler) This also.
This also. That one.</i> <i>(Sergio) That is so cool!</i> <i>That is so cool.</i> - This is a mug.<i>
- (Sergio) No way!</i> <i>I see that.
I see the handle.</i> <i>(Dr. Adler) Yeah.
And this is also a core.</i> <i>- (Sergio) What is that?</i>
- It's a mug as well. This is the outside. <i>(Sergio) Oh, they left it,
like it's not finished.</i> - It broke--<i>
- (Sergio) It broke, okay.</i> It broke as it was being made. <i>(Sergio) So, all of this,
I guess, are discards?</i> - Yeah. Everything here is discarded.<i>
- (Sergio) Okay.</i> Everything here is discarded. <i>(Sergio) Oh. This fills in
the details from the last dig</i> <i>because we didn't see them in situ.</i> <i>We saw them once you guys got them out.</i> <i>(Rhoda) Usually, Sergio and I
come visit the sites after they've been dug</i> <i>and the artifacts
had already been extracted.</i> <i>But, this time, we actually get to see
what 2,000-year-old objects look like</i> <i>when they are still buried in the ground.</i> <i>Archaeologists actually
have a term for it: in situ.</i> <i>(Dr. Adler) So, the way it works is,
as we're digging, </i> <i>we don't remove
the finds as we're digging.</i> <i>We try to keep them in situ</i> and only remove the dirt around them, so, this way, we can see exactly
how they're sitting. <i>(Sergio) Wow. That's wonderful.</i> <i>- (Dr. Adler) A mug here. A handle.
- (Sergio) That's beautiful.</i> <i>- (Dr. Adler) And the beginning of the--
- (Sergio) The core?</i> <i>(Dr. Adler) of the core
that was going to be removed.</i> <i>(Sergio) That is beautiful.</i> <i>(Rhoda) It's important to emphasize:</i> <i>These are 2,000 years old!</i> <i>Where else in the world
can you be building a railroad</i> <i>and stumble upon 1st century artifacts?</i> <i>Absolutely remarkable.</i> So, they don't usually use tractors
in an excavation dig, <i>but there's most likely two reasons
why it's here today.</i> Number one: They only have
two weeks to extract all of this before the rail needs to be built. <i>And, number two:</i> They have a collapsed cave <i>and a lot of dirt
on top of the ancient ruins</i> <i>that they need to take out very fast.</i> And, for that purpose,
the tractor is very, very useful. <i>Hey, I remember last time,
you guys weren't able to find</i> coins or things like this. <i>- (Sergio) What about this time?
- (Dr. Adler) We're looking.</i> I just asked her. She has a metal detector, so we're looking and still haven't found. And we're still looking for pottery also, so hopefully, I'm hoping
something will come in. <i>- (Sergio) Oh, that is exciting.</i>
- Yeah. <i>(Rhoda) And, then...
literally, a few minutes</i> <i>after he says that they
have not found any pottery...</i> <i>this happens.</i> <i>- (Limor) Is that it?
- Yeah.</i> <i>(Limor, in Hebrew) It's ceramics!</i> <i>(Limor, in Hebrew) How wonderful!</i> So, they've been waiting
for a very long time to find pottery, <i>and it looks like
they have finally found pottery</i> <i>in this site and can
date it more precisely.</i> This is phenomenal.
This is a cool moment to be here. <i>(Dr. Adler, in Hebrew) This is legitimate!</i> <i>(Limor, in Hebrew) Great!</i> <i>(man) (non-English speech)</i> <i>(Sergio) And I saw
you possibly found pottery?</i> Yes, we found pottery. <i>(Sergio) That was a great moment.</i> That was a little juglet. <i>(Sergio) Wow! Wow!</i> <i>(Dr. Adler) The importance
of the pottery is that</i> the pottery we can date, so that's important
for being able to date the caves. <i>- (Sergio) Wow.</i>
- It's definitely Roman. The question is: When within the Roman era
are we talking about? <i>(Sergio) That's exciting.</i> This is a very significant find because, until now,
they've been finding here stone vessels. <i>All these years, they've been finding
mugs, bowls, the cores,</i> <i>but they're difficult to date.</i> <i>Why? Because they're
a category on their own.</i> <i>They've only been found in this land
for Jewish purity ritual purposes.</i> And, so, it's hard to say: Is this AD 20 or is this AD 150? But... with pottery sherds it's different <i>because you can date them.</i> <i>Pottery sherds, we have
so much of it around the world,</i> <i>with so much data collected
about the styles of pottery,</i> <i>the colors, the glazing,</i> that they can pinpoint
the exact years of its manufacturing. So... now that they found it here,
the pottery sherds, they'll be able to date at what year
this factory was in operation. And that's huge. ♪ (music) ♪ <i>(Rhoda) Unfortunately,
we won't have the results</i> <i>for the dating of the pottery today
as it takes a long time to test them,</i> <i>so make sure to check out
the Israeli Institute of Archaeology</i> <i>and the Ariel University links
in the description below</i> <i>to stay up to date
with the latest findings</i> <i>and more in-depth information.</i> It's kind of crazy to think that
just in a few days this whole area is gonna be a railroad <i>and there are gonna be train stations around,</i> <i>and this is all gonna be gone.</i> This has been such a privilege to capture
the video and share it with you guys. We sure hope you enjoyed this video. So, until next time. ♪ (music) ♪ And if you guys were wondering
where Rhoda is... It's hot.
