Burnt House

The Burnt House Museum (aka Katros House) is a museum presenting an excavated house from the Second Temple period situated six metres below current street level in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem.

The Burnt House is believed to have been set on fire during the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE. According to Josephus, Jerusalem's Upper City was known for its wealth. It was located close to the Temple and inhabited by priestly families who served in the temple. The house was destroyed one month after the Temple and Lower City. When the Romans stormed the Upper City, they found little resistance: Much of the population was near death from disease and starvation.

Following the 1967 reunification of Jerusalem the Jewish quarter was rebuilt, and extensive archeological excavations were conducted in the area. The excavations were carried out from 1969 to 1982 under the auspices of the Institute of Archaeology of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the Israel Exploration Society and the Israel Department of Antiquities (today, the Israel Antiquities Authority). The excavations were headed by Dr Nahman Avigad, and in 1970 one of the findings was The Burnt House which was found under a layer of ashes and destruction, indicating that the house had been burned down.

The house is only part of a large complex, which could not be fully excavated and still lies under the Jewish Quarter. Coins were found in the house issued by the Roman governors of Judea, as well as those issued by the Jewish rebels in AD 67–69 and none that were later than that, indicating that the house was burned down at the end of this time. The ground floor of the Burnt House was exposed to reveal a house with an area of about 55 (32 ft) square. It included a small courtyard, four rooms, a kitchen and a Mikvah. The walls of the house, built of stones and cement and covered with a thick white plaster, were preserved to a height of about one meter. In the beaten-earth floors of the rooms were the sunken bases of round ovens made of brown clay, indicating perhaps that this wing of the house was used as a workshop.

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