Recycling the Glory of Byzantium

Abstract

The article is dedicated to one of the less studied aspects of the Byzantine–Early Islamic period transition: the recycling of valuable materials—marble and bronze—as reflected in the archaeological findings discovered during the salvage excavations at the Givati Parking Lot site in Jerusalem. In the course of the work, a portion of one of the major streets of Byzantine Jerusalem was exposed, which once served as an important pilgrimage route of the city. During the Umayyad period the street was severely damaged, and the entire area was turned into an industrial zone. Of special interest are the raw materials used in the industrial installations discovered during the excavations. These include precious imported marble veneers and fragments of liturgical furniture, which had been used as raw material for lime production in a large limekiln constructed on the original course of the Byzantine street; and scraps of bronze fragments of liturgical vessels, some decorated with crosses, which were discovered together with metal slags, pottery crucibles, and fragments of production waste, all testifying to the presence of a small-scale metallurgical workshop at the site.