Tuesday, September 27, 2005
Israeli archaeologists are continuing to find treasure amidst the rubble discarded by the Waqf in charge of the Temple Mount.
JPost: First Temple-era seal discovered
The small - less than 1 cm - seal impression, or bulla, discovered Tuesday by Bar-Ilan University archaeologist Dr. Gabriel Barkay amidst piles of rubble from the Temple Mount would mark the first time that an written artifact was found from the Temple Mount dating back to the First Temple period.
The 2,600 year old artifact, with three lines in ancient Hebrew, was discovered amidst piles of rubble discarded by the Islamic Wakf that Barkay and a team of young archaeologists and volunteers are sifting through on the grounds of a Jerusalem national park...
...The seal was found amidst thousands of tons of rubble discarded by Wakf officials at city garbage dumps six years ago, following the Islamic Trust's unilateral construction of an mosque at an underground compound of the Temple Mount known as the Solomon's Stables.
After the Antiquities Authority voiced disinterest in thoroughly sifting through the rubble discarded by the Wakf, Barkay applied -- and eventually received –a license from the Antiquities Authority to sort through the piles of earth thrown into the garbage dump in search of antiquities, and has since found scores of history-rich artifacts, from the First Temple Period until today amidst the rubble, including a large amount of pottery dating from the Bronze Ages through modern times, a large segment of a marble pillar's shaft, and over 100 ancient coins, among them several from the Hasmonean Dynasty...
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WOW!
If I understand this correctly, this will be the first authenticated, provenanced Jewish artifact from the period of the First Temple that we have from the Har ha Bayit. It would provide the first physical evidence of Jewish activity on that site before the destruction of 586.
And it was dug out by the Waqf with a bulldozer and dumped.
Surely it is time to bring in international archaeogical organizations to supervise every move the Waqf makes on the Har ha Bayit.
Or perhaps the police could simply arrest Waqf officials the next time thary break the law by digging on without a permit on an archaeolical site.
Sorry. The web site posting function kept sending strange messages.
No problem. I deleted the extras. I think my ISP is having problems with the spammers again. I have been getting literally thousands of attempted comment and trackback spams. The anti-spam measures on the blog keep them out, but they impact the server's capacity. My host plays tricks to try to do something about it, but it causes problems with the blog's functionality. I really hope it doesn't last long.
And as to your comment, wouldn't it be ironic if the Waqf itself were responsible for unearthing the proof they dread?
I like that thought. After all, the Waqf won't let an archaeologist near the place. Yet their malicious bulldozing appears to have produced the first Jewish First Temple artifact.
It is ironic.
But the whole thing is a crime. The site has so much potential for a serious dig -- for things to be removed and discarded by the waqf is incomprehensible.
Of course now they'll have to start sifting through the debris themselves to find and destroy any artefacts first.
Let me get this straight. The arab and palastinian community that says the Jews have no claim on the land are wrong. The Jews actually were there 2600 years ago? Do the Palastinians have any such evidence? No, their evidence is only baseless claims and repetition by the lazy media. By the way. Altough I find this to be a great archeological find, I'm not surprised. My Bible tells me that the Jews owned and own that land.