Artifacts with links to Bible unearthed

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Artifacts with links to Bible unearthed

By Jay Bushinsky
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Published January 2, 2006
JERUSALEM -- Israeli archaeologists, screening tons of rubble scooped out of this ancient city's sacred Temple Mount, have discovered hundreds of artifacts and coins, as well as jewelry, some with biblical links dating back more than three millennia.
Most of the stones and earth originally were taken to an organic garbage dump in nearby Bethany, the New Testament town known in Arabic as Al-Azariya, and could not be retrieved. But a substantial portion was diverted to the Valley of Kidron, mentioned in the Old Testament and located just outside the Old City's massive walls.
This ambitious archaeological project, known as the Temple Mount Antiquities Operation, was started in November 2004, when Muslims excavated the sector north of Solomon's Stables to build the massive underground Marwani Mosque. Its second season, now under way, will last until February.
The Waqf, or Muslim officials who administer the site -- known to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary -- helped the Israelis arrange the transfer.
Among the unusual finds extracted by Bar-Ilan University's Gabriel Barkai and his team of students and volunteers is a "bulla," or seal impression, thought to be used to close cloth sacks of silver.
"It bears the name Gedalyahu Ben Immer Ha-Cohen, suggesting that the owner may have been a brother of Pashur Ben Immer, described in the Bible [Jeremiah 20:1] as a priest and temple official," Mr. Barkai said.
That verse says: "Pashur, the son of Immer the priest, who was also chief governor in the House of the Lord, heard that Jeremiah prophesied these things."
The team's discoveries span 10,000 years "and belong to all the historical periods that transpired in Jerusalem," Mr. Barkai said.
One of the finds is a stone weight equivalent to four shekels (an ancient Hebrew measure, about 2 ounces), marked with words written in the ancient Hebrew alphabet.
The site is not considered an archaeological dig. The workers use a technique called "wet sifting," similar to the way prospectors pan for gold.
Mr. Barkai's team examines every particle, using large wire filters to rinse each one with cold water while looking for valuable objects.
Some finds reflect the Temple Mount's unique and dramatic history. An example of this is an iron arrowhead with a shaft used by the Roman legions during the siege of the Second Hebrew Temple 2,000 years ago.
Presumably belonging to the 10th Legion, Mr. Barkai said, "it was launched from catapults exclusive to the Roman army." He told of "scores of coins, many of them Jewish and minted by the Hasmonean and Herodian dynasty." This find might help explain why Jesus Christ drove the money-changers out of the Temple, as described in the New Testament.
"There also are beautiful objects that belong to the Crusader period," Mr. Barkai said, noting the many Byzantine coins, which testify to large attendance at the Temple Mount during the Christian conquest and rule during the 11th to 15th centuries.
Many of the more-recent coins date from the 17th century, and the research team even found a gold coin issued by the French Empire under Napoleon III.
A bronze pendant several hundred years old depicts the Holy Grail.
The team works in a large plastic tent pitched on a spur of the Mount of Olives. It overlooks the Old City of Jerusalem and the Temple Mount, which is highlighted by the golden Dome of the Rock, a mosque built between 687 and 691 by the ninth Muslim caliph, Abd al-Malik.
Because of the quantity, time and patience required to rinse the objects, this archaeological project likely will take several years to complete.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/world...3421-5168r.htm

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Tuesday, January 03, 2006, 3 Tevet 5766
Moslem Inciters Accuse Israel of Undermining Al-Aksa

Moslem incitement on the Temple Mount has reached new depths, so to speak, as the chief cleric of the Al-Aksa mosque accuses Israel of building a synagogue under the mosque.

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Moslem incitement on the Temple Mount has reached new depths, so to speak, as the chief cleric of the Al-Aksa mosque accuses Israel of building a synagogue under the mosque.

The cleric, Sheikh Mohammed Hussein, said at a news conference on Tuesday that Israel was building the synagogue in order to cause the mosque to collapse.

Israel has formally denied the charges, stating categorically that nothing at all was being developed under the mosque, let alone a synagogue.

A key speaker at the conference was Sheikh Ekrema Sabri, who holds the position of “General Mufti for Jerusalem and Palestine” for the Palestinian Authority.

Sabri told Wafa, the news agency for the Palestine Liberation Organization (the PA’s umbrella organization), that “the Israeli authorities have been exploiting the big gates of the western side of Al-Aqsa since 1996 through conducting a series of excavation works which ended with clandestinely erecting a synagogue.”

Another speaker at the news conference was Sheikh Raed Salah, head of Israel’s Islamic movement in the Galilee. Salah recently finished serving jail time after being convicted of providing assistance to a terrorist organization.

Salah threatened that Israel will be faced with war with the entire Moslem world for opening and excavating an underground tunnel parallel to the Western Wall. That tunnel has been opened to tourists since 1996.

Regarding the purported synagogue, Salah said it contained a model of the Temple and was located 27 meters from the Mosque of Omar, located roughly on the site where the Temple once stood.

Sabri said that the construction of the synagogue, which he described as having five rooms, “proves that the Israelis did not find any sign of the Temple. That is why they made up some rooms to vaguely narrate their religious history.”

The Palestinian Authority has repeatedly used attempts to deny the existence the Jewish Temples as a means to bolster their claim that the Jewish people have no legitimate rights to the land of Israel or Jerusalem.

The PA’s denial of the Temple’s existence was raised in the negotiations that took place at Camp David in the summer of 2000, just before the outbreak of the Oslo War. The issue was one of the factors leading to the breakdown of the talks.

Leading Israeli archeologists and Biblical scholars have accused the Moslem Wakf, or religious trust, of deliberately attempting to wipe out the archeological remains of the Temple. Over the past few years, the Wakf has been carrying out large-scale excavations on the Mount, especially beneath the Al-Aksa mosque, in an effort to expand the size of the mosque to accommodate thousands of worshippers.

Much of the earth excavated from that project, which is suspected of containing rich archeological remains dating from the First and Second Temples, has been dumped as garbage at Jerusalem refuse sites.


http://www.israelnationalnews.com/news.php3?id=95956