Shmuel HaNavi is a neighborhood in Jerusalem, Israel

Israel

The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

. It is located in the north of the city bordering Ramat Eshkol

Ramat Eshkol

Ramat Eshkol is a neighborhood in north-eastern Jerusalem. It was built on land captured from Jordan in the Six-Day War and was the first neighborhood built in East Jerusalem after the Six-Day War in 1967...

, Maalot Dafna and Sanhedria

Sanhedria

Sanhedria is a Haredi neighborhood in northern Jerusalem, Israel. It lies east of Golda Meir Street and adjacent to Ramat Eshkol, Shmuel HaNavi, Maalot Dafna and the Sanhedria cemetery....

.

The project-style housing in Shmuel HaNavi was built in the 1960s, but underwent a face-lift in 1985 under an Israeli urban renewal

Urban renewal

Urban renewal is a program of land redevelopment in areas of moderate to high density urban land use. Renewal has had both successes and failures. Its modern incarnation began in the late 19th century in developed nations and experienced an intense phase in the late 1940s – under the rubric of...

 project known as Project Renewal. Many of the residents today are Haredi.

In July 2009, archaeologists discovered an ancient quarry

Quarry

A quarry is a type of open-pit mine from which rock or minerals are extracted. Quarries are generally used for extracting building materials, such as dimension stone, construction aggregate, riprap, sand, and gravel. They are often collocated with concrete and asphalt plants due to the requirement...

 in the Shmuel Hanavi neighborhood. They believe it was part of a large network of quarries that were the source of the giant stones used by King Herod

Herod the Great

Herod , also known as Herod the Great , was a Roman client king of Judea. His epithet of "the Great" is widely disputed as he is described as "a madman who murdered his own family and a great many rabbis." He is also known for his colossal building projects in Jerusalem and elsewhere, including his...

 in the construction of the Second Temple

Second Temple

The Jewish Second Temple was an important shrine which stood on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem between 516 BCE and 70 CE. It replaced the First Temple which was destroyed in 586 BCE, when the Jewish nation was exiled to Babylon...

 2,000 years ago.

Rock-hewn tombs and caves believed to be the burial places of the Second Temple judges of the Sanhedrin

Sanhedrin

The Sanhedrin was an assembly of twenty-three judges appointed in every city in the Biblical Land of Israel.The Great Sanhedrin was the supreme court of ancient Israel made of 71 members...

are located in a park on the corner of Rehov Shmuel HaNavi.