Overview

The Second Temple menorah was the seven-branched golden lampstand that stood inside the Temple in Jerusalem until its destruction by the Romans in 70 CE. It continued the lampstand commanded in Exodus, kindled and tended daily by the priests, and it was among the holiest furnishings of the sanctuary. Of all the great objects of ancient Israelite worship, it is the one whose appearance is best known, because it was carried to Rome and carved in stone on the Arch of Titus.

Its status here is "attested but lost." Its existence is beyond doubt: it is described by the eyewitness historian Josephus and depicted in the triumphal relief on the Arch of Titus, the single most important image of the object. What is unknown is what became of it after it reached Rome. It was placed in the Temple of Peace, glimpsed once more in a rabbinic tradition, and then lost to the record. Centuries of legend have proposed that it went to Carthage, to Constantinople, into the Tiber, or into the Vatican, but none of these can be substantiated.