As if any more evidence for Jewish provenance in Jerusalem is needed:
Israeli archeologists have uncovered a monumental Second Temple structure in a parking lot just outside the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem opposite the Temple Mount which was likely the ancient palace of Queen Helena, the Israel Antiquities Authority announced Wednesday…
According to the director of the dig, the elaborate edifice, which is an anomaly in the landscape of the Lower City at the end of the Second Temple period – which was marked with modest buildings – was probably a palace built by Queen Helena, a wealthy Iraqi aristocrat who converted to Judaism and moved to Jerusalem with her sons…
The well-preserved structure being uncovered in the ongoing excavation is an impressive architectural complex that includes massive foundations; walls, some of which are preserved to a height in excess of five meters and built of stones that weigh hundreds of kilograms; halls that are preserved to a height of at least two stories; a basement level that was covered with vaults; remains of polychrome frescoes, water installations and ritual baths…
The large edifice was overlain with remains that date to later periods: Byzantine, Roman and Early Islamic, while below it there are remains from the Early Hellenistic period and even artifacts from the time of the First Temple. — Jerusalem Post
Incidentally, the Queen Helena we are talking about is also referred to as “Queen Helena of Adiabene” and “the Nazarite Queen” (because she took Jewish religious vows; a nazir is a monk), and is not the same person as the mother of the Roman emperor Constantine who lived a few hundred years later.
Nadia Abu El-Haj will probably tell us that she was really a proto-Muslim. It’s interesting to keep in mind, when the Palestinians talk about their illustrious civilization that was displaced by European Jews in 1948, that Helena lived about 2000 years ago, more than six centuries before The Prophet was a gleam in his father’s eye.
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