Just in time for Hanukkah, Israeli archaeologists announced the discovery of a 4th- or 5th-century workshop for producing oil lamps. The Times of Israel reports:

According to the Israel Antiquities Authority, the workshop, in the city of Beit Shemesh—unearthed ahead of the construction of a new neighborhood—contained hundreds of ancient ceramic oil lamps, two of which bore the Jewish symbol of the menorah, as well as stone molds for the production of lamps and terracotta figurines.

But another thing that fascinated the archaeologists was the similarity between the site they discovered and photos published in the 1930s by archaeologist Dimitri Baramki, which led them to solve a decades-long mystery. In 1934, Baramki, an inspector on behalf of the Department of Antiquities during the British Mandate, discovered a water cistern in the region of Beit Shemesh in central Israel west of Jerusalem. . . . Upon excavating the cistern, he uncovered a huge quantity of intact oil lamps bearing animal and plant motifs and geometric designs.

After the British Mandate-era discovery, the location of the cistern was lost and remained a mystery despite all efforts to locate it—until now. The researchers recognized the new site from photos appearing in Baramki’s excavation publication. It even contained items left behind by Baramki himself, including leather baskets used to extract soil and an empty metal box.

Early Friday morning, Israel attacked military installations near the Iranian cities of Isfahan and nearby Natanz, the latter being one of the hubs of the country’s nuclear program. Jerusalem is not taking credit for the attack, and none of the details are too certain, but it seems that the attack involved multiple drones, likely launched from within Iran, as well as one or more missiles fired from Syrian or Iraqi airspace. Strikes on Syrian radar systems shortly beforehand probably helped make the attack possible, and there were reportedly strikes on Iraq as well.

Iran itself is downplaying the attack, but the S-300 air-defense batteries in Isfahan appear to have been destroyed or damaged. This is a sophisticated Russian-made system positioned to protect the Natanz nuclear installation. In other words, Israel has demonstrated that Iran’s best technology can’t protect the country’s skies from the IDF. As Yossi Kuperwasser puts it, the attack, combined with the response to the assault on April 13,

clarified to the Iranians that whereas we [Israelis] are not as vulnerable as they thought, they are more vulnerable than they thought. They have difficulty hitting us, but we have no difficulty hitting them.

Nobody knows exactly how the operation was carried out. . . . It is good that a question mark hovers over . . . what exactly Israel did. Let’s keep them wondering. It is good for deniability and good for keeping the enemy uncertain.

The fact that we chose targets that were in the vicinity of a major nuclear facility but were linked to the Iranian missile and air forces was a good message. It communicated that we can reach other targets as well but, as we don’t want escalation, we chose targets nearby that were involved in the attack against Israel. I think it sends the message that if we want to, we can send a stronger message. Israel is not seeking escalation at the moment.