Egyptian researcher claims there were no Temples

Al Ahram reports that Egyptian researcher Dr. Rahim Rihan, a supposed expert in Sinai and maritime archaeology, has determined that there have never been any Jewish Temples in Jerusalem.

Part of his evidence is the League of Nations report of December 1930 that determined that the Western Wall belongs to Muslims. (Part of that conclusion came because the rabbis that testified said that it belongs to no one but God, while the Muslims claimed it as their real estate.)

However, if you look at that very same report, the League of Nations makes it crystal clear that the Jewish Temples were on the Temple Mount:

The Wailing Wall forms an integral part of the western exterior shell of the Harem-esh-Sherif which itself is the site of the ancient Jewish temples, at the present day supplanted by Moslem Mosques....The very large blocks of stone at the base of the Wall, more especially the six courses of drafted stones, are dated by most archaeologists to the times of the Temple of Herod (i.e., the second, reconstructed Temple). Many of the stones bear inscriptions in Hebrew on their faces, some of them painted, others engraved. Above these stones there are three courses of undrafted masonry; these are probably Roman work (dating from the rebuilding of the city as a Roman colony by the Emperor Hadrian). The upper strata again are of much later date, belonging probably to the period about 1500 A.D. Recent researches go to show that the boundaries of the Wall coincide with those of the platform of the Temple of Solomon, of which courses of stones are supposed to still remain beneath the surface.

...It was Solomon who built the first Temple of Jerusalem, the grandeur and beauty of which have become widely renowned, thanks to the holy books and the historians. The Temple was situated on Mount Moriah on the platform, now known as the Harem-esh-Sherif area.

...About 720 B.C., the Assyrians destroyed the Kingdom of Israel and carried the inhabitants away as captives. About 600 B.C., Nebuchadnesar, King of Babylon, attacked the Kingdom of Judah. He destroyed the city of Jerusalem and the Temple of Solomon in the year 587 B.C. Most of the inhabitants were conveyed into captivity and were unable to return to their country until about 50 years later, after Cyrus, King of Persia, had conquered Babylon.

According to the Prophet Jeremiah the Jews who remained in the Holy Island during that period of expatriation had already developed the habit of going to worship on the ruins of the Temple. After the Jews returned to Palestine, the Temple was rebuilt on its ancient site, about the years 520-515 B.C. During the ensuing century a set form of ritual was established by Ezrah and Nehemiah.

In 332 B.C. the Jews came under the domination of the Macedonians. King Antiochus IV treated the Jews severely and, after the revolt they set on foot about 170 B.C. had been quelled, the second Jewish Temple was destroyed. Then there followed a period of independence, to a certain extent, which lasted until the country was conquered by the Romans, Pompey entering Jerusalem in the year 63 B.C. According to tradition - Bavli, Makkoth 24 - the Jews also during this period, i.e., after the destruction of the second Temple, were accustomed to go to the ruins of their holy site.

In the year 40 B.C., with the support of the Romans, Herod, surnamed the Great, became King of Judea and during his reign the Judean Kingdom regained some of its ancient splendour. Herod reconstructed the Temple for the second time.

This last Temple was not destined to attain the same length of life even as its predecessors, for in the year 70 A.D., Titus, who afterwards became Roman Emperor, conquered Jerusalem and, like Nebuchadnesar six and a half centuries earlier, destroyed the whole city of Jerusalem and also the Temple, a part of the Western Wall being the only remnant left of the building.

In the book edited by the Dominican Fathers, Vincent and Abel, Jérusalem nouvelle, Paris 1922-26, we are told that, during the first period after the destruction of the Temple of Herod, the Jews continued to go and weep at the ruins of it. According to tradition, the Jews' wailing-place at that time seems to have been the stone on Mount Moriah where the Mosque of Omar now stands.

...There are several Jewish authors of the 10th and 11th centuries, e.g., Ben Meir, Rabbi Samuel ben Paltiel, Solomon ben Judah, and others, who write about the Jews repairing to the Wailing Wall for devotional purposes, also under the Arab domination. A nameless Christian Pilgrim of the 11th century testifies to a continuance of the practice of the Jews coming to Jerusalem annually.

What kind of a liar does it take to cite a document as proof of your position when it actually says the opposite?

Read More

Waqf destroying more priceless artifacts on Temple Mount

From Times of Israel:

The Muslim authority managing the Temple Mount on Sunday dumped tons of unexamined earth and stones excavated from the holy site into a municipal dump, in violation of a High Court injunction, Maariv reported on Monday.

Israel’s top court in September 2004 prohibited removal of earth from the Temple Mount and ruled that, should it be necessary, the Antiquities Authority must be notified a month in advance so it may examine the earth for artifacts.

Jews regard the Temple Mount as their holiest site, where the First and Second Temple were located. Muslims call it the Noble Sanctuary and regard it as their third holiest site after Mecca and Medina. According to the existing arrangement, the Jerusalem Islamic Waqf, or trust, administers the Temple Mount complex.

Despite the High Court of Justice’s ruling, the Waqf has reportedly removed large piles of dirt from the Temple Mount in recent years and dumped them in the valley east of the Old City walls, provoking an outcry from biblical archaeologists and Jewish groups.

Tzachi Dvira, the archaeologist managing the team that sifts through soil excavated from the Temple Mount, told Maariv that mounds of earth containing historic relics were carted off and dumped on Sunday without notification and before archaeologists could investigate them.

Police claimed the removal of the soil was coordinated in advance. Dvira, however, said there were no Antiquities Authority officials on site, and the one police officer monitoring the operation had no idea of its significance.

Heavy earth moving equipment on the Temple Mount

Soil from the Temple Mount that had been removed to the Kidron Valley in recent years has yielded “tens of thousands of finds, including signet rings from the First Temple era, painted floor tiles from the Second Temple era, ancient gold coins, and horseshoe nails and arrowheads belonging to the Knights Templar, who stabled their horses in Solomon’s Stables,” Dvira said.

This video of the material actually being dumped shows what are undoubtedly carved stones.



The Israeli government is clearly giving the Waqf a wide berth to destroy any vestiges of Jewish history on the Temple Mount, apparently to avoid trouble. This is dangerously shortsighted.

The most valuable artifacts in the world are being wantonly destroyed by racists and Israel, which is supposed to guard Jewish heritage, is looking the other way.

I know - we can ask UNESCO to intervene! That's their job, right? They wouldn't stand by while priceless cultural and religious artifacts are being destroyed, would they?

(h/t Yoel and Yisrael Medad)

Read More

1500 year old Jewish town found near Beersheva

The Israel Antiquities Authority announced yesterday the discovery of a Jewish town near Beersheva that flourished in the 6th century CE.

Archaeologists uncovered two ritual baths and two public buildings with platforms on the Jerusalem-facing walls, indicating that they were either synagogues or Talmud schools.

It appears that the town was evacuated around the time of the Muslim invasion.

Indeed, it seems that the land of Israel had a significant - if not majority - Jewish population for centuries after the Roman conquest until the Muslim hordes came.

An aerial view of the town:

And some of the excavations:

(h/t The Muqata)

Read More

Israeli archaeologist discovers secrets of Sobibor death camp

From AP:

When Israeli archaeologist Yoram Haimi decided to investigate his family's unknown Holocaust history, he turned to the skill he knew best: He began to dig.

After learning that two of his uncles were murdered in the infamous Sobibor death camp, he embarked on a landmark excavation project that is shining new light on the workings of one of the most notorious Nazi killing machines, including pinpointing the location of the gas chambers where hundreds of thousands were killed.

Sobibor, in eastern Poland, marks perhaps the most vivid example of the "Final Solution," the Nazi plot to wipe out European Jewry. Unlike other camps that had at least a facade of being prison or labor camps, Sobibor and the neighboring camps Belzec and Treblinka were designed specifically for exterminating Jews. Victims were transported there in cattle cars and gassed to death almost immediately.

But researching Sobibor has been difficult. After an October 1943 uprising at the camp, the Nazis shut it down and leveled it to the ground, replanting over it to cover their tracks.

Today, tall trees cover most of the former camp grounds. Because there were so few survivors -- only 64 were known -- there has never been an authentic layout of the camp, where the Nazis are believed to have murdered some 250,000 Jews over an 18-month period. From those few survivors' memories and partial German documentation, researchers had only limited understanding of how the camp operated.

"I feel like I am an investigator in a criminal forensic laboratory," Haimi, 51, said near his home in southern Israel this week, a day before departing for another dig in Poland. "After all, it is a murder scene."

Over five years of excavations, Haimi has been able to remap the camp and has unearthed thousands of items. He hasn't found anything about his family, but amid the teeth, bone shards and ashes through which he has sifted, he has recovered jewelry, keys and coins that have helped identify some of Sobibor's formerly nameless victims.

The heavy concentration of ashes led him to estimate that far more than 250,000 Jews were actually killed at Sobibor.

"Because of the lack of information about Sobibor, every little piece of information is significant," said Haimi. "No one knew where the gas chambers were. The Germans didn't want anyone to find out what was there. But thanks to what we have done, they didn't succeed."

The most touching find thus far, he said, has been an engraved metal identification tag bearing the name of Lea Judith de la Penha, a 6-year-old Jewish girl from Holland who Israel's Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial confirmed was murdered at the camp.

Haimi calls her the "symbol of Sobibor."

"The Germans didn't discriminate. They killed little girls too," he said. "This thing (the tag) has been waiting for 70 years for someone to find it."

Read More

Archaeology news part 2: Stone seal depicting Samson?

Ma'ariv reports on the discovery of a stone seal that seems to depict an image of a man holding onto a lion-like animal with a large head and tail.

The seal was excavated in Tel Bet Shemesh, and comes from around the 11th century BCE, the same time period that the biblical Samson was said to have lived, according to the archaeologists who discovered it, Prof. Shlomo Bunimovitz and Dr. Zvi Lederman from Tel Aviv University.

In the Biblical story from Judges 14, Samson killed a lion with his bare hands, and used it as a source for a riddle that ended up starting a feud with the Philistines.

The archaeologists also discovered an early pre-Kingdom temple in the area, which had thousands of animal bones that seemed to be of Israelite origin.

(h/t Yoel)

Read More

Archaeology news part 1: "Mass grave from Temple destruction"

From Israel HaYom:

Remains of thousands of Jews massacred by the Romans on the Temple Mount at the time of the destruction of the Second Temple may have been uncovered in Jerusalem, according to a veteran archaeological journalist.

During a conference on Thursday at Megalim – the City of David Institute for Jerusalem Studies, journalist Benny Liss screened a movie recorded a few years ago that clearly shows thousands of skeletons and human bones in what appears to be a mass grave.

Liss, veteran archaeological correspondent for Israel's Channel 1, told the amazed audience that the film had been shot in a spacious, underground cavern in the area of the Mercy Gate, near the eastern wall of the Temple Mount, but just outside it. Liss raised the possibility that the skeletons were the remains of 6,000 Jews, mostly women and children, killed on the Temple Mount when the Romans destroyed the Second Temple, as described in the writings of Flavius Josephus, who witnessed the destruction.

The movie shows a group of people accessing the cavern with construction tools. Liss goes in first, followed by a lighting technician and cameraman. The three first pass through a narrow passage and then enter the cave with the skeletal remains. Liss says he tried to work out the size of the pile of remains by putting his hand in as far as he could, but he could not reach the bottom. The movie shows Liss crumbling some of the carbonized materials near the skeletons. As soon as Liss left the cave, Antiquities Authority staff resealed the cave, he says.

During the lecture, Liss also cites historical sources that show that in the area of the Old City where the Muslim cemetery now stands, there was once a Jewish neighborhood and cemetery, which was moved to the Valley of Josaphat. He basis his theory that the skeletons are the remains of the people killed on the Temple Mount on the site of the mass grave, the soot in the cave and the written history.

"The Romans stayed on the Temple Mount for a month after the destruction of the temple until going on to conquer the upper city [today's Jewish Quarter],” says Liss. “They had to get rid of the thousands of decomposing bodies and the most obvious place to do this would have been the natural caves on the upper slope of the mount, around Mercy Gate."

The veteran journalist emphasized that this was just a theory. "Now, after publishing this information, the experts should go into the field and examine what we found back then, evaluate it and publish their own findings," he says.

A host of senior archaeologists approached by Israel Hayom said that photographs were not enough to determine the history of the cave and that samples need to be taken from the site and dated.

The chances of the site being reopened are very slim as it is located in a particularly sensitive area, where the Jerusalem Islamic Waqf keeps a close watch and interprets every movement by Jews or Israeli authorities on the mount.

The Antiquities Authority said in response that it was unaware of the findings presented in Liss' movie, and it would be happy to receive the materials. One official told Israel Hayom that he was aware of unsubstantiated reports of a cave with a large amount of human remains in the area, but because of the extreme sensitivity of the location and its close proximity to the Muslim cemetery, the cave had never been explored.

Read More

Second Temple mikveh was discovered on Temple Mount in 1927 - and hushed up

From Israel HaYom:

In 1927, an earthquake struck Jerusalem, killing 130 people, wounding 450 and destroying or heavily damaging about 300 buildings, including Al-Aqsa mosque. The Muslim waqf, led by Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Haj Amin al-Husseini, began restoring the mosque. Robert Hamilton, the director of the antiquities department during the Mandatory period in pre-state Israel, spotted an opportunity in the midst of disaster.

7th century BCE finding from Temple Mount project, saying "From Gibeon to the King"

Hamilton took advantage of this unexpected window of opportunity to reach an agreement with the waqf that would allow archaeological investigation on the Temple Mount, for the first time ever, in the area where the mosque had collapsed. Hamilton documented the reconstruction work done by the waqf, photographed, sketched, excavated, analyzed and wrote about a series of findings, some of them surprising.

But this unprecedented cooperation between the British archaeologist and the Muslim clerics was not without a price. In the book that Hamilton later published, he makes no mention of any findings that the Muslims would have found inconvenient. It was no coincidence that these findings came from two historical periods that preceded the Muslim period in Jerusalem: the Second Temple era and the Byzantine era. These findings were hidden deep in the Mandatory archives department (which today is part of the Antiquities Authority archives in the Rockefeller Museum). These days they are finally coming to light.

...Beneath the floor of Al-Aqsa mosque, which had collapsed in the earthquake, Hamilton discovered the remains of a Jewish mikveh [ritual pool used for purification] that dated back to the Second Temple era.

Apparently, Jews immersed in this mikveh before entering the Temple grounds.

This article is a little maddening.

It describes the latest findings from the Temple Mount sifting project that is going through tons of debris that was criminally destroyed by the Waqf on the Temple Mount, and adds details I was not aware of, like:

...[P]iles of earth remain on the Temple Mount. In an extraordinary move, the High Court of Justice has ruled that the waqf is forbidden to move them.

“We are willing to allow the waqf to remove the earth from there under certain conditions that will allow us to carry out a better archaeological examination of it, or if they allow us to sift it there. Meanwhile, the waqf refuses to allow either option. Not only that, but it is deliberately mixing this earth with modern-day trash and construction debris in order to reduce our ability to get something out of it in the future,” he says.

But outside some Byzantine-era mosaics, the other findings that Robert Hamilton made, and presumably photos, are not delved into.

If they are at the Rockefeller Museum, and they have not been yet publicized - why not?

(h/t Yoel)

Read More

Betar and the PA's attempts to destroy Jewish history

From Diana Muir Appelbaum:

An interesting contest is being waged over a Judean hilltop known as Betar or Battir.

This hilltop village with a system of stone-walled hillside terraces has been nominated by the Palestinian Authority for recognition as a World Heritage Site, and has won the Melina Mercouri International Prize for the Safeguarding and Management of Cultural Landscapes, awarded by UNESCO.

...The World Heritage site nomination caught the attention of a number of commentators since the village is best known under the older, Hebrew version of the name: Betar. Betar was the military headquarters of the Bar Kochba Revolt, a Jewish revolt against Roman rule in 135 CE, and it was that revolt’s last stronghold. When Betar fell, the defenders and their leader, Shimon Bar Kochba, were killed. The event is commemorated by the villagers who call the ancient defensive tower “Khirbet el-Yahud”, “the Jewish ruin”.

...The ancient village dated back to the Iron Age and the archaeological discovery of a “Lmlk” seal impression establishes that it was part of the Judean kingdom in the eighth century BCE. The site was abandoned after the battle. Bar Kochba apparently chose the small, hilltop farming village because it has a constant spring of water and was on a defensible hilltop beside the Jerusalem-Gaza road. The archaeological survey done in 1993 by David Ussishkin (D. Ussishkin, “Archaeological Soundings at Betar, Bar-Kochba’s Last Stronghold”, Tel Aviv 20, 1993, pp. 66-97) reports that the the Jewish liberation fighters hastily threw up crude stone fortification walls, incorporating parts of the walls and buildings of the Jewish village.

In effect if not in intent, UNESCO has awarded the Mercouri prize to a set of retaining walls at least the upper tier of which belonged to an ancient Jewish village.

The Jewish claim to the land is that Jews are the original people of the land, as attested by the ancient Jewish kingdoms.

The Arab claim to the land is that they are the indigenous people of the land, as attested by farming villages like this one. It is not an unreasonable claim, but perhaps nominating an ancient Jewish village for UNESCO World heritage Status is not the most effective way to make it.

Some of David Ussishkin's research from Betar is online. He notes:

The line of the fortification wall, dating apparently to the time of the Second Revolt, is visible along most part of the site and was studied in the excavations. The northern part of the summit which was not settled was left outside the walled area. The city-wall was built as a retaining wall, its lower part supported by a fill on the inside, thus resembling a terrace on the hilly slope. It contained several semi-circular buttresses or towers (see picture), and at least one rectangular buttress or tower on the western side. Apparently built in a hurry, the wall was carelessly and inconsistently constructed.

So indeed the upper terrace is of Jewish origin, and was not meant to be a terrace at all but a fortification.

The Hebrew LMLK seal found on pottery in Betar establishes it as a Jewish town nearly a millennium before the Bar Kochba revolt, as the many LMLK-stamped artifacts are all from around the time of King Hezekiah, around 700 BCE. LMLK means "for the King."

Any way you look at it, Betar is Jewish. Which is almost certainly why the Palestinian Arabs choose it to commemorate "Palestinian history."

Because they want to erase Jewish history.

UPDATE: See also My  Right Word.

Read More

Earliest evidence of Bethlehem found in archaeological dig

From the Israel Antiquities Authority:

The first ancient artifact constituting tangible evidence of the existence of the city of Bethlehem, which is mentioned in the Bible, was recently discovered in Jerusalem.

A bulla measuring c. 1.5 cm was found during the sifting of soil removed from archaeological excavations the Israel Antiquities Authority is carrying out in the City of David. The sifting is underwritten by the 'Ir David Foundation' in a project being conducted in the Emek Tzurim National Park.

A bulla is a piece of clay that was used for sealing a document or object. The bulla was impressed with the seal of the person who sent the document or object, and its integrity was evidence the document or object was not opened by anyone unauthorized to do so.

Three lines of ancient Hebrew script appear on the bulla:

בשבעת Bishv'at

בת לחם Bat Lechem

[למל]ך [Lemel]ekh

According to Eli Shukron, director of the excavation on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority, “it seems that in the seventh year of the reign of a king (it is unclear if the king referred to here is Hezekiah, Manasseh or Josiah), a shipment was dispatched from Bethlehem to the king in Jerusalem. The bulla we found belongs to the group of “fiscal” bullae – administrative bullae used to seal tax shipments remitted to the taxation system of the Kingdom of Judah in the late eighth and seventh centuries BCE. The tax could have been paid in the form of silver or agricultural produce such as wine or wheat”. Shukron emphasizes,” this is the first time the name Bethlehem appears outside the Bible, in an inscription from the First Temple period, which proves that Bethlehem was indeed a city in the Kingdom of Judah, and possibly also in earlier periods”.

In the Bible Bethlehem is first mentioned in the verse “in Ephrath, which is Bethlehem”, and it was on the way there that Rachel died and it is where she was buried (Genesis 35:19; 48:7). The descendants of Judah settled there, among them the family of Boaz (Book of Ruth).

I wonder what the former PA Mufti would make of this? He was quite emphatic that there is no archaeological evidence that Jews were in Jerusalem in ancient times.

(h/t Dan)

Read More

Major archaeological finds in Israel confirm Biblical accounts from King David's time

From Israel's MFA:

Prof. Yosef Garfinkel, the Yigal Yadin Professor of Archaeology at the Institute of Archaeology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, announced the discovery of objects that for the first time shed light on how a cult was organized in Judah at the time of King David. During recent archaeological excavations at Khirbet Qeiyafa, a fortified city in Judah adjacent to the Valley of Elah, Garfinkel and colleagues uncovered rich assemblages of pottery, stone and metal tools, and many art and cult objects. These include three large rooms that served as cultic shrines, which in their architecture and finds correspond to the biblical description of a cult at the time of King David.

This discovery is extraordinary as it is the first time that shrines from the time of early biblical kings were uncovered. Because these shrines pre-date the construction of Solomon's temple in Jerusalem by 30 to 40 years, they provide the first physical evidence of a cult in the time of King David, with significant implications for the fields of archaeology, history, biblical and religion studies.


Located approximately 30 km. southwest of Jerusalem in the valley of Elah, Khirbet Qeiyafa was a border city of the Kingdom of Judah opposite the Philistine city of Gath. The city, which was dated by 10 radiometric measurements (14C) done at Oxford University on burned olive pits, existed for a short period of time between ca. 1020 to 980 BCE, and was violently destroyed.

The absence of cultic images of humans or animals in the three shrines provides evidence that the inhabitants of the place practiced a different cult than that of the Canaanites or the Philistines, observing a ban on graven images.

The findings at Khirbet Qeiyafa also indicate that an elaborate architectural style had developed as early as the time of King David. Such construction is typical of royal activities, thus indicating that state formation, the establishment of an elite, social level and urbanism in the region existed in the days of the early kings of Israel. These finds strengthen the historicity of the biblical tradition and its architectural description of the Palace and Temple of Solomon.

According to Prof. Garfinkel, "This is the first time that archaeologists uncovered a fortified city in Judah from the time of King David. Even in Jerusalem we do not have a clear fortified city from his period. Thus, various suggestions that completely deny the biblical tradition regarding King David and argue that he was a mythological figure, or just a leader of a small tribe, are now shown to be wrong." Garfinkel continued, "Over the years, thousands of animal bones were found, including sheep, goats and cattle, but no pigs. Now we uncovered three cultic rooms, with various cultic paraphernalia, but not even one human or animal figurine was found. This suggests that the population of Khirbet Qeiyafa observed two biblical bans - on pork and on graven images - and thus practiced a different cult than that of the Canaanites or the Philistines."

...The stone model helps us to understand obscure technical terms in the description of Solomon's palace as described in 1 Kings 7, 1-6. The text uses the term "Slaot," which were mistakenly understood as pillars and can now be understood as triglyphs. The text also uses the term "Sequfim", which was usually understood as nine windows in the palace, and can now be understood as "triple recessed doorway."

Similar triglyphs and recessed doors can be found in the description of Solomon's temple (1 Kings 6, Verses 5, 31-33, and in the description of a temple by the prophet Ezekiel (41:6). These biblical texts are replete with obscure technical terms that have lost their original meaning over the millennia. Now, with the help of the stone model uncovered at Khirbet Qeiyafa, the biblical text is clarified. For the first time in history we have actual objects from the time of David, which can be related to monuments described in the Bible.

(h/t D)

Read More

First Temple-era seal found adjacent to Kotel

From Israel's MFA:

The remains of a building dating to the end of the First Temple period were discovered below the base of the ancient drainage channel that is currently being exposed in Israel Antiquities Authority excavations beneath Robinson’s Arch in the Jerusalem Archaeological Garden, adjacent to the Western Wall of the Temple Mount. This building is the closest structure to the First Temple found to date in archaeological excavations.

In the excavations, underwritten by the Ir David Foundation, a personal Hebrew seal from the end of the First Temple period was discovered on the floor of the ancient building. The seal is made of a semi-precious stone and is engraved with the name of its owner: "Lematanyahu Ben Ho…" ("למתניהו בן הו..." meaning: "Belonging to Matanyahu Ben Ho…"). The rest of the inscription is erased.

From the very start of the excavations in this area the archaeologists decided that all of the soil removed from there would be meticulously sifted (including wet-sifting and thorough sorting of the material remnants left in the sieve). This scientific measure is being done in cooperation with thousands of pupils in the Tzurim Valley National Park. It was during the sieving process that the tiny seal was discovered.

People used personal seals in the First Temple period for the purpose of signing letters and they were set in a signet ring. The seals served to identify their owner, just as they identify officials today.

According to Eli Shukron, excavation director on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority, "the name Matanyahu, like the name Netanyahu, means giving to God. These names are mentioned several times in the Bible. They are typical of the names in the Kingdom of Judah in latter part of the First Temple period - from the end of the eighth century BCE until the destruction of the Temple in 586 BCE. To find a seal from the First Temple period at the foot of the Temple Mount walls is rare and very exciting. This is a tangible greeting of sorts from a man named Matanyahu who lived here more than 2,700 years ago. We also found pottery sherds characteristic of the period on the floor in the ancient building beneath the base of the drainage channel, as well as stone collapse and evidence of a fire."

Arutz 7 adds:

The name Matanyahu appears twice in Chronicles 1:25, in a section listing names of Hebrews whom King David had appointed to sing G-d's praise and perform other functions at the Holy Tabernacle. A few lines away, the name Netanyahu also appears. Both names are etymologically very close and mean the same thing: "Gift to [or from] G-d."

The seal is about 2 cm. (less than one inch) in diameter. Private seals in First Temple times served people for signing documents and were set on rings.

The archeologists had decided in advance that all of the dirt to come out of this dig would be thoroughly sifted – through use of "wet sifting" and meticulous sorting of the remaining materials in the sieve. The sifting is carried out with the help of thousands of school children from all over Israel, at the Emek Tzurim National Park. About 4,500 pupils participated in the work in the last few months.

Read More

ISESCO denies Jewish Temples existed; publishes "media plan" on how to defeat Zionism

A press release from ISESCO, the Islamic Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization:

The Islamic Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (ISESCO) strongly denounced the Israeli occupation army’s publication of a photo of the Holy Aqsa Mosque without Qubat Al-Sakhra (the Dome of the Rock).

In a communiqué released today, ISESCO affirmed its rejection of what the so-called religious authority of the Israeli occupation army in the occupied city of Al-Quds did when they published a photo of Al-Aqsa Mosque without the Dome of the Rock. This photo, ISESCO underlined, depicts the true intention of the Israeli occupation authorities to judaize the city and establish the alleged Temple in the so-called “Temple Mount” on “the ruins” of Al-Aqsa Mosque, especially as a model of the Temple has been built in front of Al-Aqsa Mosque, and the calls of the Jewish rabbis to demolish the First Qibla and the Third Holy Mosque have increased.

"Alleged" Temple? "So-called" Temple Mount?

I guess we can see the importance of education, science and culture to ISESCO.

Elsewhere, ISESCO makes its Temple denial more explicit:

[N]o trace was found of this temple after many excavations and archaeology digs carried out by Israeli and western archaeologists. An increasing number of Israelis refute the Jewish allegations about the temple, having conducted their own investigations, excavations and studies which all point to the non-existence of the temple in the alleged site at any time in history.

It is this document that proves that ISESCO is a sham organization, whose purpose has nothing to do with Islamic culture or history - but rather to uproot any vestige of Jewish history.

The document is called "Media Plan for Publicising the Cause of Al Quds Al Sharif in the West and Mechanisms for its Implementation." It looks like it was written in late 2004. ISESCO is the architect of a plan on how to spread Islamic propaganda in the West and how to counter Jewish claims to Israel and Jerusalem.

And it makes its goals quite clear, in this paragraph describing its idea of the Jewish view of Jerusalem:

Jerusalem is at the heart of the Jewish faith, the cornerstone of its spiritual and intellectual edifice and of the dream of rebuilding the Hebrew state in accordance with the false Zionist slogan of the “Return to Zion”, or “Return to Jerusalem”, ensuring its continuity and the continuity of the Israeli presence in the Arab region. This presence is vital for the West since Israel acts as a shield that protects the western civilisation from confronting the so called “Arab backwardness, barbarity and savagery”. Thus, Jerusalem is the cornerstone of the spiritual edifice and the Zionist Jewish entity. Were it to be dislodged, the whole edifice and the Zionist entity itself would crumble like a deck of cards.

That is the entire goal of this media plan! It describes short, medium and long term goals to do exactly this dislodging of Jerusalem from Judaism.

For example, do these objectives sound familiar?

1- Gaining the support of some intellectual, cultural and political role-players who can impact on the Western public opinion about the Arab-Israeli conflict and the question of Al Quds, by adopting the international resolutions of legitimacy and the related UN resolutions as a starting point in the media plan.

2- Penetrating Western activities or fields of activities, particularly those of influential media, cultural, intellectual and economic spheres in such a way as to ensure their responsiveness to the other’s point of view and their outlook on the official stance of their countries as subservient to and reflective of the interests of the Zionist movement with its various formations and bodies, and not of the interests of their own countries, in particular economic and vital interests.

3- Discreetly and indirectly encouraging trends critical of Zionism and the Israeli judaisation policies in Jerusalem within western circles and in a way that would prevent the targeting, isolation and annihilation of these trends by the Zionists movement and its concealed and visible tentacles.

It is almost as if Walt, Mearsheimer, Blumenthal, Friedman, Mondoweiss and others are acting in a play written by ISESCO!

Can you imagine a genuine cultural or educational organization creating a document on how to spread propaganda in order to destroy an entire culture?

Anyone who wants to truly understand how the anti-Israel crowd is using the media should read this document.

(h/t CHA)

Read More

First Temple-period bulla found

From Bible History Daily and The Temple Mount Sifting Project:

Jerusalem archaeologist Gabriel Barkay announced this week that the Temple Mount Sifting Project has discovered a fragment of a seventh-century B.C.E. clay bulla impressed with the ancient Hebrew inscription [g]b’n lmlk, or “Gibeon, for the king.” According to Barkay, the bulla is evidence for royal taxation of different Judahite cities, in this case the town of Gibeon. More than 50 other such “fiscal bullae” are already known, but most lack contextual information. “All the fiscal bullae known until now come from the antiquities market, and our bulla is the first one to come from a controlled archaeological project,” wrote Barkay on the project’s Web site. “This bulla enables us to fully illuminate and discuss the entire phenomenon of the fiscal bullae.”

The bulla originates from the eastern slope of the Temple Mount, descending into the Kidron Valley.

The [full collection of] bullae include names of 19 different cities of Judah, and dates of the reign of one of the Judean kings, usually in hieratic numerals, as well as the particle “lmlk“, “for the king”. ...The fiscal bullae represent a taxation system from the different Judean cities, based on yearly taxes, which probably replaced the previous one, reflected in the royal Judean jars and their seal impressions, from the time of King Hezekiah. The discussion includes the characteristic details of the taxation systems of the Samaria Ostraca and the “lmlk” jars, in comparison to the fiscal bullae. A detailed discussion of 13 different arguments is brought to suggest the dating of the fiscal bullae to the time of King Manasseh, Hezekiah’s son (698-642 BCE). The mentioning of Lachish in some of the bullae is directly connected to the question of the date of the reconstruction of that city’s level II. The city is mentioned to pay its taxes in the 19th and 21st regnal years, which could not be in the reign of Hezekiah as the city was destroyed by Sennacherib in 701 BCE, which was Hezekiah’s 14th regnal year. According to our suggestion, Lachish was restored after being in ruins for about 16 years, by King Manasseh, rather than Josiah, as previously suggested.

The discovery of the fiscal bulla with the name of Gibeon from the slope of the Temple Mount, authenticates all the other fiscal bullae, and enables us to study a variety of subjects connected to the history of Judah in the 7th century BCE.

Those Jews, always pretending to have been in Israel for more than 63 years.

(h/t Dan)

Read More

Potentially huge geniza find in Afghanistan

From JPost:

Screenshot from Channel 2 report (unclear if this is actual or illustrative)

The Jewish scholarly world is abuzz over the discovery of ancient Jewish scrolls in a cave in Afghanistan’s Samangan province, Channel 2 reported on Friday.

According to Arab Affairs correspondent Ehud Yeari, if validated the scrolls may be the most significant historical finding in the Jewish world since that of the Cairo Geniza in the 19th century.

“We know today about a couple of findings,” Haggai Ben-Shammai, Professor Emeritus of Arabic Language and Literature at Hebrew University was quoted as saying. “In all, in my opinion, there are about 150 fragments. It may be the tip of the iceberg.”

The scrolls, which were part of a geniza, a burial site for sacred Jewish texts, date from around 1,000 years ago and are in Arabic, Judeo-Arabic and ancient Persian.

One scroll, whose replica was shown to the cameras, is apparently a dirge written for an important person whose identity has not been determined.

Other texts said to be found include an unknown history of the ancient kingdom of Judea, passages from the book of Isaiah and some of the works of Rabbi Saadia Gaon, a medieval sage.

In addition, rings with Jewish names like Shmuel Bar Yosef inscribed in Hebrew on them have surfaced.

The area in which the findings were discovered is on the so-called Silk Road, a trade route that connected Eastern Asia with the Middle East and Europe which Jewish merchants often traveled.

Yeari quoted sources as saying the scrolls were first moved to Peshawar province in Pakistan and from there had been sold to antiquities dealers around the world in Geneva, London, Dubai and Jerusalem.

He said the Prime Minister’s Office and several Jewish businessmen had expressed an interest in buying the scrolls from dealers and collectors but that the process was in its early stages.

The Cairo Geniza, which the said discovery was been compared with, has produced 280,000 texts providing a wealth of information on almost every aspect of Jewish history.

The last couple of paragraphs make it sound like the actual site of the findings is not under any sort of control, which could make it much harder to research properly. It might require some Indiana Jones-style archaeologists to properly deal with this!

(h/t Yoel)

Read More

Archaeologists confirm detail of Chanukah story

From Ha'aretz:

Israeli archaeologists have uncovered the first archeological find to confirm written testimony of the ritual practices at the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem.

An Israeli Antiquities Authority archaeological survey at the northwestern corner of the Temple Mount yielded a tiny tin artifact, the size of a button, inscribed with the Aramaic words: “Daka Le’Ya,” which the excavation directors on behalf of the IAA, archaeologists Eli Shukron and Professor Ronny Reich of the University of Haifa, explain means “pure for God.”

Researchers believe the artifact, dated to the first century, towards the end of the Second Temple period, is a seal similar to those described in the Mishnah. If they are correct, this is the first time physical evidence of the temple ritual was found to corroborate the written record.

The team believes the tiny seal was put on objects designated to be used in the temple, and thus had to be ceremonially pure.

In this vein, and in the spirit of Hanukkah, Jerusalem District archaeologist of the Israel Antiquities Authority, said: “It is written in the Talmud that the only cruse of oil that was discovered in the Temple after the victory of the Maccabees over the Greeks, “lay with the seal of the High Priest” – that is: the seal indicated that the oil is pure and can be used in the Temple. Remember, this cruse of oil was the basis for the miracle of Hanukkah that managed to keep the menorah lit for eight days”.

In addition to this artifact, the dig also yielded other Second Temple artifacts, some older from the time of the Hasmonean Dynasty rule, including oil lamps, earthenware pots, and containers filled with oils and perfumes, as well as coins bearing Hasmonean kings such as Alexander Jannaeus and John Hyrcanus.

Wiktionary translates "Daka" as "to cleanse, to purify."

Intriguingly, Jastrow translates "Daka" as "humble" or "crushed." And the Genesius Lexicon translates it similarly:

Is it possible that "Daka l'Ya" doesn't only mean "pure for God" but perhaps "crushed for God" - meaning it is a seal meant specifically for olive oil produced for the Temple service?


(h/t Dan)

Read More

A Dead Sea Scrolls vignette

Jordan is complaining to UNESCO about the exhibition of some of the Dead Sea Scrolls currently being shown in US cities (the exhibit is in Times Square at the moment.)

This prompted me to look up what happened when Israeli troops took over the Rockefeller Museum that housed most of the Scrolls in 1967:

During the war, the Jordanians had fortified the Palestine Archaeological Museum and put gun emplacements in its main tower. The museum was strategically located outside the north-east comer of the Old City overlooking vital north-south roads in the Jerusalem area.

On June 6, Israeli paratroopers entered the building and secured it after feeble Jordanian resistance. One lieutenant—like most Israelis keenly interested in archaeology—immediately began to search for the Dead Sea Scrolls, but the display case was empty. Avraham Biran, director of the Israel Department of Antiquities, had received a call that same day from Carmella Yadin, Yigael Yadin's wife. She told him that Yadin had been notified that the museum would soon be in Israeli hands and asked if Biran would go to the museum and make sure that the scrolls and other antiquities were safe.

Biran needed no arm-twisting. He took two other archaeologists with him to the museum, where they were obliged to go in the back door, since the paratroopers were still engaged in a fire -fight in the front with Jordanians on the city walls.

Some of the paratroopers immediately conscripted Biran to give them, during the battle, an impromptu lecture and tour of the antiquities of the museum. The archaeologist was happy to oblige and led a few of the soldiers around the premises, with the sound of shooting and breaking glass coming from the front of the building. The next day, after the entire city had been secured, the paratroopers left. Some of them dutifully signed the guest registry as they filed out, complete with banal comments ("Fantastic," "Very pleasant").

In many ways, the Scrolls serve as a microcosm of the entire Israel/Arab conflict. During the 19 years that Jordan controlled the Scrolls, no Jewish or Israeli scholars were allowed to study them. Likewise, Jordan did not allow Israeli archaeologists to visit the Qumran site. Jordan made the scrolls Judenrein, just like the Old City of Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria.

Read More

New Temple denial from our Palestinian Arab friends

Robinson's Arch

A couple of weeks ago, the Israel Antiquities Authority announced an astonishing find of coins underneath the paved street near Robinson's Arch that showed that parts of the western supporting walls of the Temple Mount has been built after Herod's death. I noted at the time that the Palestinian Arabic press was saying that this was somehow proof that there was no Temple there.

Now, a hastily-convened pseudo-scientific press conference has made this Temple denial official.

A Palestinian Arab academic named Jamal Amr said that the discovery has caused much frustration to Zionist archaeologists and blew up their claims about the "legend of the temple." This distinguished expert then went on to claim that all the discoveries that have been found in the city of Jerusalem and the Temple Mount came from the Arab and Islamic Umayyad and Abbasid periods up to the Ottoman period!

I'm not sure, but he might be saying that the Herodian Temple was built hundreds of years later.

Dr. Amr seems to be a professor at Bir Zeit University. As far as I can tell, he has no specific expertise in archaeology - but rather in architecture.

But when you want to dig up an pretend archaeology expert, he's the man!

Note that no Israeli media outlet expressed any misgivings about the discovery. It is well known that Herod didn't build the Second Temple but rather he expanded it some five centuries after it was built. Temple rituals were not stopped during the construction. In no way does the discovery of the coins contradict the existence of the Temple - which has lots of archaeological evidence, and more discovered every few months.

Read More

New Second Temple find causes Arabs to imply it was a myth

From Israel's MFA:

Who built the Temple Mount walls? Every tour guide and every student grounded in the history of Jerusalem will immediately reply that it was Herod. However, in the archaeological excavations alongside the ancient drainage channel of Jerusalem a very old ritual bath (miqwe) was recently discovered that challenges the conventional archaeological perception which regards Herod as being solely responsible for its construction.

In an excavation beneath the paved street near Robinson's Arch, sections of the Western Wall's foundation were revealed that is set on the bedrock - which is also the western foundation of Robinson's Arch - an enormous arch that bore a staircase that led from Jerusalem's main street to the entrance of the Temple Mount compound.

According to Professor Reich, "It became apparent during the course of the work that there are rock-hewn remains of different installations on the natural bedrock, including cisterns, ritual baths and cellars. These belonged to the dwellings of a residential neighborhood that existed there before King Herod decided to enlarge the Temple Mount compound. The Jewish historian Josephus, a contemporary of that period, writes that Herod embarked on the project of enlarging the compound in the eighteenth year of his reign (that is in 22 BCE) and described it as "the largest project the world has ever heard of".

When it was decided to expand the compound, the area was confiscated and the walls of the buildings were demolished down to the bedrock. The rock-cut installations were filled with earth and stones so as to be able to build on them. When the locations of the Temple Mount corners were determined and work was begun setting the first course of stone in place, it became apparent that one of the ritual baths was situated directly in line with the Western Wall. The builders filled in the bath with earth, placed three large flat stones on the soil and built the first course of the wall on top of this blockage.

While sifting the soil removed from inside the sealed ritual bath, three clay oil lamps were discovered of a type that was common in the first century CE. In addition, the sifting also yielded seventeen bronze coins that can be identified.

Dr. Donald Ariel, curator of the numismatic collection of the Israel Antiquities Authority, determined that the latest coins (4 in all) were struck by the Roman procurator of Judea, Valerius Gratus, in the year 17/18 CE. This means that Robinson's Arch, and possibly a longer part of the Western Wall, were constructed after this year - that is to say: at least twenty years after Herod's death (which is commonly thought to have occurred in the year 4 BCE).

This bit of archaeological information illustrates the fact that the construction of the Temple Mount walls and Robinson's Arch was an enormous project that lasted decades and was not completed during Herod's lifetime.

This dramatic find confirms Josephus' descriptions which state that it was only during the reign of King Agrippa II (Herod's great-grandson) that the work was finished, and upon its completion there were eight to ten thousand unemployed in Jerusalem.

Palestine News Network had this as the top story. While the article is pretty accurate, here was their headline:

New archeological discoveries undermine the narrative about the Jewish temple in Jerusalem

It will be recalled that the PA has said that there was no Jewish Temple in Jerusalem at all.

(h/t Yoel)

Read More

Crusader inscription discovered - written in Arabic!

From Israel's MFA:

An Arabic inscription that bears the name of the Holy Roman Emperor, Frederick II, and the date "1229 of the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus the Messiah", was recently deciphered by Professor Moshe Sharon and Ami Shrager of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. During the deciphering it became evident that this is a rare archaeological find - the only one of its kind.

The 800-years-old inscription was fixed years ago in the wall of a building in Tel Aviv. The original location of the gray marble slab, on which the inscription is engraved, was probably in Jaffa's city wall.

As Professor Sharon relates, "Frederick II led the Sixth Crusade of 1228-1229 and succeeded, without resorting to arms, in achieving major territorial gains for the Crusader Kingdom. His most important feat was the handing over of Jerusalem to the Crusaders by the Egyptian sultan al-Malik al-Kamil as a result of an armistice agreement the two rulers signed in 1229. Prior to achieving this agreement, the emperor fortified the castle of Jaffa and left in its walls, as it now appears, two inscriptions, one in Latin and the other in Arabic. The Arabic inscription was drafted by Frederick's officials, or possibly even the emperor himself, and it is the one which has been now deciphered".

Although just a small part of the Latin inscription was preserved, it was enough to ascribe it, already at the end of the 19th century, to Frederick II. Today, with the aid of the Arabic inscription, it is possible to virtually complete the text of that fragment.

The unique Arabic inscription is almost completely intact. It lists all of the titles of Frederick II, and as already stated, has no counterpart elsewhere. In Sicily, where Frederick's main royal palace was located, no Arabic inscription of his has been found to date. Furthermore, until now this is the only Crusader inscription in the Arabic language ever found in the Middle East.

Frederick II, despite having been excommunicated by Pope Gregory IX, crowned himself king of Jerusalem in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, and mentioned his being the 'King of Jerusalem' in this inscription. He knew Arabic and maintained a close relationship with the Egyptian royal family.

I wonder what would happen to such a find if it was discovered in an area that was ruled by a government that includes Hamas.

I'm sure UNESCO would protect Arabic writings that extol Crusaders from any possible harm.

Read More

Miniature Christian prayer box found in Jerusalem

From Ha'aretz:

Walk through the Christian quarter of Jerusalem's Old City and you'll see souvenir shops selling assorted varieties of small plastic Christian prayer boxes displaying miniature icons, usually Mary and Jesus, surrounded by a gold halo. Not far from those shops, Israeli archaeologists have discovered what may be the oldest miniature Byzantine prayer box to date, archaeologist Yana Tchekhanovets announced last week.

The discovery - made by Tchekhanovets and fellow archaeologist Doron Ben-Ami about a year ago during an Israel Antiquities Authority excavation in the Givati parking lot across from the City of David - sheds light on art in ritual in Byzantine-era Jerusalem.

The box, discovered in the Byzantine strata (324-838 C.E.) in the plaster between two floor tiles, is approximately half the size of a matchbox: 2.2 centimeters by 1.6 centimeters, and a few millimeters high. The inside contains delicate and partially erased drawings of Christian icons. With a little effort it is possible to discern a blurred feminine face and, on the bottom, a clearer male face. The colors used to make the icons have survived and shades of red, blue, brown and white are detectable, all against a delicate gold background.

"Never before have we held such an object in hand," said Tchekhanovets, who announced the discovery at an archaeology conference held at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, in conjunction with the Israel Antiquities Authority. "It's very exciting that we uncovered it," she said.

The big question revolves around the identity of the two icons in the prayer box. The likely answer, says Tchekhanovets, is that they are Jesus and Mary, but it is certainly possible that they could be other local saints who flourished in that era. Like the prayer boxes sold today in souvenir shops, its Byzantine predecessor was used as a personal ritual object that could be taken anywhere. When worshipers wanted to pray, they would open the box and pray before the icons, and it would function as a miniature church.

Of course, this object - from the 6th century CE - predates Islam.

And isn't it interesting that it was found in the City of David archaeological dig? Anti-Zionists like to charge that Israel's archaeology, and City of David in particular, is politically-motivated and meant only to find Jewish objects. Yet these hateful Zionists seem quite proud to have discovered a Christian relic.

And those Zionist archaeologists find and publicize Islamic-era finds all the time as well.

(h/t Dan)

Read More