Is This What the Temple Menorah Looked Like?

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The menorah, a seven-branched candelabra that stood in the Temple, is the most enduring and iconic Jewish symbol. But what did it look like? In early August, the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) issued a press release announcing the discovery of “an engraving of the Temple’s menorah on a stone object” in a 2,000-year-old drainage channel near the City of David, which is being excavated by Ronny Reich and Eli Shukron.a (An unusually well preserved iron sword in its leather scabbard, which presumably belonged to a Roman soldier, was also found there.) The IAA release went on to say that […]

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Footnotes

See “Escape Clause,” BAR 36:03, and Strata: “Secret Passage Discovered Under Ancient Jerusalem,” BAR 34:04.

See Reinhard Pummer, “How to Tell a Samaritan Synagogue from a Jewish Synagogue,” BAR 24:03.

See Steven Fine, “The Temple Menorah—Where Is It?” BAR 31:04; Joey Corbett, “New Synagogue Excavations in Israel and Beyond,” BAR 37:04.

^‡ Despite the fact that the Tabernacle menorah described in Exodus has seven branches, Duke University archaeologist Carol Meyers argues that Solomon’s Temple contained only single-stemmed lamps. See Carol L. Meyers, “Was There a Seven-Branched Lampstand in Solomon’s Temple?” BAR 05:05.

Endnotes

Israel Knohl, “Post-Biblical Sectarianism and the Priestly Schools of the Pentateuch” in Julio T. Barrera and Luis V. Montaner, eds., The Madrid Qumran Congress, vol. 2 (New York: E.J. Brill, 1992), pp. 601–609.