Israel discovers 2,000-year-old Jewish synagogue

Jerusalem, Dec 13 (IANS) The University of Haifa (UH) has announced that Israeli archaeologists had discovered a 2,000-year-old synagogue on the shore of the Sea of Galilee in north-eastern Israel.

The Jewish house of prayer was unearthed in the ancient city of Magdala, casting light on the social and religious lives of the Jews in the Galilee region in that period, UH said on Sunday.

The excavated synagogue is a broad, square-shaped building constructed from basalt and limestone, with a central hall and two additional rooms, Xinhua news agency reported.

The walls of the central hall are coated with white and coloured plaster and along them is a stone bench, also coated in plaster.

One of the rooms, on the south side of the hall, may have been used to store scrolls. Inside the room, the archaeologists found a plaster-coated stone shelf.

At the site, the researchers have also found pottery candles, molded glass bowls, coins and stoneware used for purification.