Ancient artifacts provide archeologists with vast amounts of information that helps to shine a light on how people lived during ancient times.

While a lot of artifacts have been found over the years, a lot more have been lost or destroyed because tomb robbers find it first and either ruin it because they don’t know what they are doing, or they sell it off in undocumented ways so that it can’t be analyzed by experts.

A group of local volunteers and archeological experts have been working together to find and collect as many artifacts as possible from the Middle Eastern deserts so that it can be studied and preserved for future generations.

This team has recently uncovered a pyramid-like structure located in the Judean Desert. This large pyramid is said to date all the way back to the Ptolemaic era, which is when Israel was ruled over by pharaohs.

Dr. Eitan Klein and Amir Ganor are two of the experts working on this discovery. In a statement, they said:

“What we have here is one of the richest and most intriguing archaeological excavations ever found in the Judean Desert. This pyramidal structure we discovered is huge, and made of hand-hewn stones, each one weighing hundreds of kilograms.”

The archaeologists and citizen scientists are still working on uncovering, preserving, and studying all that this find has to offer. The researchers did say:

 “in the first excavation week, the volunteers found written historical documents, exceptional bronze vessels, and remains of ancient furniture, which thanks to the desert climate were preserved in amazing condition.”

This type of information is invaluable in showing how people in this region lived their lives. One of the many pieces that have been revealed so far is an ancient Greek papyri. There are also bronze coins that have the image of Ptolemeis on them. Ptolemies ruled over Egypt and the surrounding area sometime between the fourth and first centuries BCE.

This, along with evidence gathered from other pieces in the pyramid, suggests that it was in use around 2200 years ago.

The archeologists at the site readily admit that there is still a lot that needs to be discovered in this location. They commented:

“We still do not know for certain what the building’s purpose was: is this a guard tower, guarding an important commercial route through which the Dead Sea resources of salt and bitumen were transported to the coastal ports? Or at some point was this enormous structure on the mountaintop marking a grave, or serving as a monument in ancient history?”

Working through all that this pyramid has to offer will likely take years if not decades. The team needs to be very careful to preserve the area and all of the artifacts that may be there.

You can see video of the location and the work being done here:

What an incredible find!