2019 July 19th the Museum's staff members have visited the excavations of the Great Synagogue of Vilna. According to the researchers, Dr. Jon Seligman of the Israel Antiquities Authority and Justinas Račas of the Cultural Heritage Conservation Force of Lithuania, who have conducted excavations in Lithuania every summer for the last four years, the large and significant inscription, dated to 1796, was part of a stone Torah reading table that stood on the magnificent Bimah of the synagogue in Vilnius. This past season, the archaeologists found the bimah's front section, which was originally two-stories tall in the 18th century. They also found seating plaques, a floor with beautiful red-and-black geometric designs, and a cellar underneath the bimah, which held a prayer book from before the Holocaust. All these and other archaeological findings will form the collection of the Vilna Gaon State Jewish Museum.
Photo: Paulius Račiūnas
