A 2,750-year-old temple was discovered to the west of Jerusalem at the famous archeological site Tel Motza known for its prime archeological importance, the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced Wednesday.

The uncovered temple reportedly has massive walls and it includes a wide, east-facing entrance, conforming to the tradition of temple construction in the ancient Near East which allowed the sun to illuminate the object placed inside the temple first when it is rising in the East symbolizing the divine presence within, according to the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Archeologists also uncovered a square structure exposed in the temple courtyard which was probably an altar and near the structure, they found the cache of sacred vessels. The collection includes ritual pottery vessels, with fragments of chalices (bowls on a high base which were used in sacred rituals), decorated ritual pedestals, and a number of pottery figurines of two kinds: the first, small heads in human form (anthropomorphic) with a flat headdress and curling hair; the second, figurines of animals (zoomorphic) - mainly of harnessed animals.

According to archeologists, "the find of the sacred structure together with the accompanying cache of sacred vessels, and especially the significant coastal influence evident in the anthropomorphic figurines, still require extensive research," the ministry informed.

Israel's Antiquities Authority was astonished at the findings.

"The ritual building at Tel Motza is an unusual and striking find, in light of the fact that there are hardly any remains of ritual buildings of the period in Judaea at the time of the First Temple," said Anna Eirikh, Dr. Hamoudi Khalaily and Shua Kisilevitz, directors of the excavation on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority.

"The uniqueness of the structure is even more remarkable because of the vicinity of the site's proximity to the capital city of Jerusalem, which acted as the Kingdom's main sacred center at the time," they said.

The findings provide "rare archaeological evidence for the existence of temples and ritual enclosures in the Kingdom of Judah in general, and in the Jerusalem region in particular, prior to the religious reforms throughout the kingdom at the end of the monarchic period (at the time of Hezekiah and Isaiah), which abolished all ritual sites, concentrating ritual practices solely at the Temple in Jerusalem," Tel Motza's directors said in a statement provided by the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs.