Dumped Temple Mount Rubble Yields Jewish Artifacts

Teresa Neumann : Apr 15, 2005
Arutz Sheva News

The first-ever archaeological examination of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem has been taking place for the past six months, yielding a wealth of artifacts, according to Arutz Sheva news.

In November 1999, an illegal, unsupervised construction project on the Temple Mount caused irreparable damage to the important site in the Kidron Valley. Though the archaeological remains were no longer in their original contexts, they held enormous potential to shed light on the undocumented human history of the Temple Mount, as systematic archaeological excavation or scientific study have never taken place there. The mounds of dirt in the Kidron Valley therefore contained the only available data from the Temple Mount to which modern archaeologists have ever had access.

During the illegal excavations and dumping on and from the Temple Mount, Tzachi Zweig, then an archaeology student, called a press conference to publicize the extent of the archaeological havoc being perpetrated. He caused quite a stir by displaying an assortment of artifacts that he had easily scooped out of the piles. As a result, prominent archaeologist Dr. Gabriel Barkai decided to undertake the task of sifting through the 70 truckloads of Temple Mount dirt in order to rescue as much archaeological information from the destruction as possible.

The sifting and examinations have already yielded important artifacts from various periods, starting from the First Temple period until today. Among the discoveries so far:

* A coin from the time of the Great Revolt against the Romans, preceding the destruction of the Second Temple. It bore the Hebrew phrase L'Herut Tzion, "For the Freedom of Zion."

* A Hasmonaean lamp.

* A crusader arrow.

* A large segment of a marble pillar's shaft -- one meter tall and 60 cm in diameter, streaked with purple veins and white spots.

* A large amount of pottery shards were discovered. Some 10-20 percent of it stems from the time of the First Temple period, and a small amount comes from the Second Temple period.

* Animal bones -- remnants of sacrifices.

* A number of mosaic tiles and prehistoric flint implements.

* An inscription chiseled on a jar fragment of the First Temple period, with the ancient Hebrew letters "Heh," "Ayin" and "Kof."

* A seal impression from the Hellenistic period showing a five-pointed star with the ancient Hebrew letters spelling "Jerusalem" spaced between the points.

* Numerous ceramic oil lamps.

* About 100 ancient coins, including several from the period of the Hasmonaean dynasty. One of the Hasmonean coins bears an inscription: "Yehonatan High Priest, friend of the Jews." On the other side is a cornucopia with a pomegranate in the center. Another coin is of Alexander Jannaeus. One side has the design of an anchor and the other side a star.

* A fragment of a figurine from the First Temple period.

* A Scytho-Iranian arrowhead, of the type used by the Babylonian army of Nebuchadnezzar that destroyed the First Temple in 586 BCE. Very few such arrowheads have been found in Jerusalem.

* A bronze arrowhead from the Hellenistic period, possibly a remnant left by the Seleucid forces that were stationed in the Akra fortress, or by soldiers of Shimon the Maccabee, who liberated the Temple Mount.

* An ivory comb, apparently from the Second Temple period. Similar combs have been found at Qumran, and it is probable that they were used as preparation for ritual purification in a mikveh (ritual bath), prior to entering the Temple courts.

According to the Arutz Sheva report, because such a sensitive excavation of material had never before taken place, and because the material had been purposely mixed with garbage and other matter, Zweig and Barkai had a difficult time estimating how much time the excavation would take. Despite six months of work, to date only 15% of the rubble has been examined.