“The Weight of Cheats” from the days of the First Temple
The stone weight that was used for trade in Jerusalem about 2700 years ago weighs more than three times the weight indicated on it, and the researchers believe that it was used by merchants who wanted to cheat in the trading process. The phenomenon of cheating in commerce has been known since biblical times, and it stated in several commandments that you are to avoid this act: “You shall do no wrong in judgment, in measures of length or weight or quantity. You shall have just balances, just weights, a just ephah, and a just hin.” (Leviticus 19, 35-36)
The discovery, unearthed by the Israel Antiquities Authority in archaeological excavations near the Beit Shatz tourist complex at Armon Hanatziv in Jerusalem at the initiative of the City of David. Only about ten throne houses from the First Temple are recognized today in the archaeological find.
Many finds have been discovered in the City of David excavations, and they provide non-verbal testimony to the destruction of Jerusalem, both in the Babylonian period and in the Roman period. More than a thousand years after the destruction of the Second Temple, Jerusalem’s walls were breached again on the same date.
