Photo Credit: Courtesy
By Alexander J. Apfel/TPS
Jerusalem (TPS) – An American tourist (19) snuck into Zedekiah's Cave on Thursday, March 10, and hid inside overnight, eluding the guards as they closed the cave to the public.
During his one-night stay, the tourist dug in search of the legendary treasure of Korah and his followers and other treasures purported to be hidden in the cave.
When workers opened the cave the next morning, they found the intruder covered in mud and dust, carrying archaeological finds in his bag. He had removed from the cave rock fragments considered archaeologically valuable since they were quarried for generations during biblical times for the construction of the Second Temple.
The ancient 9,000-square-meter cave is generally closed on Fridays but was opened by chance on Friday, March 11 for work purposes. After the tourist was discovered, he was taken into police custody, and the archaeological findings were returned to the cave.
The tourist was not the first to dig in Zedekiah's Cave for hidden treasures, though other digs have been allowed by the authorities.
In 1968, a Muslim resident of the Old City claimed his grandfather had found three crates of gold coins in the cave before 1948. The site is important to Muslims as the place where the earth swallowed Korah as punishment for his attempt to rebel against Moses.
The man claimed his grandfather had told him where to find the crates. After promising to donate 75% of the bounty to the State of Israel, the government permitted the search, which ultimately found nothing.
Zedekiah's Cave is a dug-out expanse beneath the Old City walls. Archaeologists believe the cave was in continuous use from the 8th-7th centuries BCE through the 15th century CE, when it was sealed for about 300 years until being discovered again in 1854.
The cave, also known as Solomon's Quarries, is revered by the Freemasons, who believe that King Solomon was the first Freemason and used stones from the site to build the Temple. The Freemasons, a secretive international fraternity often cited in conspiracy theories, still hold annual ceremonies in the cave and consider it one of their most treasured sites.
Michael Bachner contributed to this article.
