JERUSALEM, Dec. 12 (Xinhua) -- The University of Haifa (UH) announced on Sunday that Israeli archaeologists had discovered a 2,000-year-old synagogue on the shore of the Sea of Galilee in northeastern Israel.

The Jewish house of prayer was unearthed in the ancient city of Magdala, casting light on the social and religious lives of the Jews in the Galilee region in that period, UH noted.

The excavated synagogue is a broad, square-shaped building constructed from basalt and limestone, with a central hall and two additional rooms.

The walls of the central hall are coated with white and colored plaster and along them is a stone bench, also coated in plaster.

One of the rooms, on the south side of the hall, may have been used to store scrolls. Inside the room, the archaeologists found a plaster-coated stone shelf.

At the site, the researchers have also found pottery candles, molded glass bowls, coins and stoneware used for purification. Enditem

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