This week, the Israel Antiquities Authority announced that an ancient limestone box has gone on display at the Israel museum, which archaeologists believe was used by a merchant for displaying items for sale to pilgrims coming to visit the Second Temple. Gavriel Friske writes:

The square box, 30 centimeters (1 foot) on a side and thought to be 2,000 years old, is divided into nine internal compartments and was discovered about two years ago “in a destruction layer inside an ancient store dated to the end of the Second Temple period that once stood alongside the Pilgrimage Road in the City of David,” according to a press release. The sides of the box are blackened, indicating that it was burnt “perhaps during events of the Great Jewish Revolt [66–72 CE], which ultimately led to the destruction of Jerusalem,” the notice said.

Excavations in the same area have revealed a myriad of objects linked to commercial activities and a busy city market, including glass and ceramic vessels, weights, coins, measuring tools, and manufacturing and cooking facilities, a “testament to the flourishing commercial activity that took place alongside the road during the Second Temple period,” the archaeologists said.

Thousands of fragments of ancient limestone vessels have been uncovered in Jerusalem. Jewish law indicates that stone vessels cannot become impure, unlike metal or clay, explaining their widespread use in the city.

Examining the effects of Iran’s decision to launch nearly 200 ballistic missiles at Israel on October 1, Benny Morris takes stock of the Jewish state’s strategic situation:

The massive Iranian attack has turned what began as a local war in and around the Gaza Strip and then expanded into a Hamas–Hizballah–Houthi–Israeli war [into] a regional war with wide and possibly calamitous international repercussions.

Before the Iranians launched their attack, Washington warned Tehran to desist (“don’t,” in President Biden’s phrase), and Israel itself had reportedly cautioned the Iranians secretly that such an attack would trigger a devastating Israeli counterstrike. But a much-humiliated Iran went ahead, nonetheless.

For Israel, the way forward seems to lie in an expansion of the war—in the north or south or both—until the country attains some sort of victory, or a diplomatic settlement is reached. A “victory” would mean forcing Hizballah to cease fire in exchange, say, for a cessation of the IDF bombing campaign and withdrawal to the international border, or forcing Iran, after suffering real pain from IDF attacks, to cease its attacks and rein in its proxies: Hizballah, Hamas, and the Houthis.

At the same time, writes Morris, a victory along such lines would still have its limits:

An IDF withdrawal from southern Lebanon and a cessation of Israeli air-force bombing would result in Hizballah’s resurgence and its re-investment of southern Lebanon down to the border. Neither the Americans nor the French nor the UN nor the Lebanese army—many of whose troops are Shiites who support Hizballah—would fight them.