Showing posts with label archaeological site. Show all posts
Showing posts with label archaeological site. Show all posts

Tuesday, September 6, 2016

Game-Changing Evidence of Holy Temple Discovered at Archaeological Site [PHOTOS] - Adam Eliyahu Berkowitz BREAKING ISRAEL NEWS

Game-Changing Evidence of Holy Temple Discovered at Archaeological Site [PHOTOS]


“And He said unto me: ‘Son of man this is the place of My throne and the place of the soles of My feet where I will dwell in the midst of the children of Yisrael for ever.’” Ezekiel 43:7 (The Israel Bible™)
An incredible new discovery at the Temple Mount has produced the first-ever physical and archaeological evidence that the Jewish Second Temple stood on the Mount 2,000 years ago, upsetting Arab claims, increasingly endorsed by the international community, that the Temples never existed.
Archaeologists from the Temple Mount Sifting Project, salvaging artifacts from Muslim destruction at the Temple complex, have completed the restoration of ornate floor tiles which experts believe likely decorated the courtyard of the Second Jewish Temple. The project provides visible and incontrovertible proof, backed up by ancient texts and historical context, of a Jewish Temple on the Mount.
In total, archaeological teams have uncovered approximately 600 colored stone floor tile segments, with more than 100 of them positively dated to the Herodian Second Temple period (37-4 BCE).

An eight-pointed star floor tile from the Second Temple. (Temple Mount Sifting Project/Zachi Dvira)
An eight-pointed star floor tile from the Second Temple. (Temple Mount Sifting Project/Zachi Dvira)

The importance of the discovery is undeniable.
“This represents the first time that archeologists have been able to successfully restore an element from the Herodian Second Temple complex,” said Zachi Dvira, co-founder and director of the Temple Mount Sifting Project.
The Sifting Project began in the Tzurim Valley National Park in 2004 in an attempt to salvage whatever archaeological artifacts it could from destruction caused by illegal construction projects on the Temple Mount led by the Jordanian Waqf that controls the Mount.
This destruction of irreplaceable archaeological artifacts is considered to be part of a larger trend of Temple denial. Denying Jewish connection to the Temple Mount began at the 2000 Camp David Summit, when the Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat insisted that “the Temple” existed near Shechem (Nablus), and not on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.
This claim has been taken up in the international narrative as UNESCO passed an initiative claiming the Temple Mount as an exclusively Muslim holy site. This claim went mainstream last October when the New York Times published an article questioning whether the two Jewish Temples ever existed at all.

An eight-pointed star floor tile from the Second Temple. (Temple Mount Sifting Project/Zachi Dvira)
An eight-pointed star floor tile from the Second Temple. (Temple Mount Sifting Project/Zachi Dvira)

Breaking Israel News asked Dr. Gabriel Barkay, co-founder and director of the Temple Mount Sifting Project, if this first-of-its-kind restoration was absolute proof refuting Temple denial.
“You are asking me if I have proof that water is wet,” he responded emphatically. “I don’t need to prove anything. I found facts.”
Dr. Barkay compared denial of the Jewish Temples to denying the Holocaust. “I myself am a Holocaust survivor, and I couldn’t care less about people who deny what I know to be true. For the Holocaust, we have the camps, we have the films and photographs, and we have the survivors,” he told Breaking Israel News.
“For the Temple, we have the Mishnah (Oral Law), the New Testament, we have the writings of Flavius Josephus (a 1st Century Romano-Jewish historian). We have mountains of archaeological evidence. I don’t want to relate to what is nothing less than a political misuse of history.
Do you agree the Jewish people have a Biblical right to Jerusalem?
“There are people who approach me, especially Europeans, and ask what proof I have there was a Jewish Temple. I say that I don’t have proof and I am not interested in proof,” Dr. Barkay stated. “The fact is there was a Temple. Our discovery simply shows the glory that was the Temple.”
Speaking of proof, the tiles fit perfectly into a description of the Temple complex given by historian Josephus, who saw Temple with his own eyes. He wrote in his work “The Jewish Wars” that “the uncovered [Temple Mount courtyard] was completely paved with stones of various types and colors”.
The find also agrees with Talmudic literature about the construction of the Temple Mount which describes rows of green, blue and white marble. The tile segments, mostly imported from Rome, Asia Minor, Tunisia and Egypt, were made from polished multicolored stones cut in a variety of geometric shapes.

Floor tiles from the Second Temple. (Temple Mount Sifting Project/Zachi Dvira)
Floor tiles from the Second Temple. (Temple Mount Sifting Project/Zachi Dvira)

Another point of historical proof is that this style of flooring is consistent with floors found in contemporary works built by Herod, the builder of the Second Temple. Similar flooring has been found at Herod’s palaces in Masada, Herodian, and Jericho, among others. A key characteristic of the Herodian tiles is their size, which corresponds to the Roman foot, approximately 29.6 cm.
The restoration is proof of a theory that large expanses of the Temple Mount during the Second Temple were covered with a special type of ornate flooring called opus sectile, Latin for “cut work.” The idea was first put forward in 2007 by archaeologist Assaf Avraham, director of the Jerusalem Walls National Park. The new discovery confirms it.
“So far, we have succeeded in restoring seven potential designs of the majestic flooring that decorated the buildings of the Temple Mount,” said Frankie Snyder, a member of the Temple Mount Sifting Project’s team of researchers and an expert in the study of ancient Herodian style flooring, explaining that there were no opus sectile floors in Israel prior to the time of King Herod. “The tile segments were perfectly inlaid such that one could not even insert a sharp blade between them.”

Floor tile from the Second Temple. (Temple Mount Sifting Project/Zachi Dvira)
Floor tile from the Second Temple. (Temple Mount Sifting Project/Zachi Dvira)

Dr. Barkay noted that not only is the find an archaeological treasure, but a way for Jews to connect to their holiest place, which today’s generations can only imagine.
“This represents the first time that we can see with our own eyes the splendor of the flooring that decorated the Second Temple and its annexes 2,000 years ago,” said Dr. Barkay.
“Referring to the Temple that Herod built, the Talmud says that ‘Whoever has not seen Herod’s building has not seen a beautiful building in his life’. Though we have not merited seeing the Temple in its glory, with the discovery and restoration of these unique floor tiles, we are now able to have a deeper understanding and appreciation for the Second Temple, even through this one distinctive characteristic.”

Temple Mount Sifting Project team member holding models of the Second Temple. floor tiles. (Temple Mount Sifting Project/Zachi Dvira)
Temple Mount Sifting Project team member with the Second Temple floor tiles. (Temple Mount Sifting Project/Zachi Dvira)

Monday, September 9, 2013

Ancient golden treasure found at foot of Jerusalem’s Temple Mount


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The medallion may be the oldest Torah ornament ever found in archaeological digs. 
A third-generation archaeologist working at the Hebrew University’s Institute of Archaeology, Dr. Mazar directs excavations on the City of David’s summit and at the Temple Mount’s southern wall. 
Calling the find “a breathtaking, once-in-a-lifetime discovery,” Dr. Mazar said: “We have been making significant finds from the First Temple Period in this area, a much earlier time in Jerusalem’s history, so discovering a golden seven-branched Menorah from the seventh century CE at the foot of the Temple Mount was a complete surprise.”
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“And he said unto me: ‘What seest thou?’ And I said: ‘I have seen, and behold a candlestick all of gold, with a bowl upon the top of it, and its seven lamps thereon; there are seven pipes, yea, seven, to the lamps, which are upon the top thereof…” (Zechariah 4:2)
Temple Mount
At the foot of the Temple Mount, Hebrew University archaeologist Dr. Eilat Mazar discovered gold coins, gold and silver jewelry, and a gold medallion etched with a menorah, shofar and Torah scroll. (Photo: Ouria Tadmor)
Third generation archaeologist Eilat Mazar, of Hebrew University, revealed Monday morning that an unusual cache of gold coins and other related artefacts, dating to the seventh century CE, were discovered this summer at the Ophel excavation site near the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.
“We have been making significant finds from the First Temple Period in this area, a much earlier time in Jerusalem’s history, so discovering a golden seven-branched Menorah from the seventh century CE at the foot of the Temple Mount was a complete surprise,” Mazar said.  The discovery is being called the “Ophel treasure,” and consists of 36 gold coins, as well as some gold and silver jewellery and a large medallion embossed with a menorah (seven-branched candelabrum), a shofar (ram’s horn) and Torah scroll, and hanging from a chain.  This is especially significant because it points to a Jewish presence in the area at the time.
The menorah continues to be an important Jewish symbol today, serving as the emblem of the state of Israel, where it is flanked by two olive branches, as described in the book of Zechariah.  The original menorah was constructed, at God’s command, from a single piece of gold (Exodus 25:31-40) and lit first in the Tabernacle and later in the Temple.  It was also famously depicted on the arch of Titus, commemorating the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE.
Mazar points out the chain on the medallion as a clue to its original use.  She explains it was likely an ornament for a Torah scroll.  It was found buried along with a smaller gold medallion, two pendants, a gold coil and a silver clasp, likely all ornaments for the scroll.  The coins were found loose, leading to the theory that they were abandoned when the bearer failed in his task.  “It would appear that the most likely explanation is that the Ophel cache was earmarked as a contribution toward the building of a new synagogue, at a location that is near the Temple Mount,” said Dr. Mazar. “What is certain is that their mission, whatever it was, was unsuccessful. The treasure was abandoned, and its owners could never return to collect it.”
The coins, dating to the reigns of various Byzantine emperors from the mid-fourth to early seventh centuries, were discovered a mere five days into the excavation and just 50 meters (164 feet) from the Temple Mount, in the ruins of a Byzantine public structure.  Lior Sandberg, numismatics (currency) specialist at the Institute of Archaeology, identified this as the third collection to be found in Jerusalem excavations.
Given the date of the items and the manner in which they were found, Mazar estimates they were abandoned in the context of the Persian conquest of Jerusalem in 614 CE.
After the Persians conquered Jerusalem, many Jews returned to the city and formed the majority of its population, hoping for political and religious freedom. But as Persian power waned, instead of forming an alliance with the Jews, the Persians sought the support of Christians and ultimately allowed them to expel the Jews from Jerusalem.
The Ophel project has been funded by Daniel Mintz and Meredith Berkman of New York since 2009. The project includes archeological excavations, the processing of the finds for publication, as well as the preservation and preparations of the site for its opening to the public.
The Israel Antiquities Authority is carrying out the preservation works and preparing the site for the public for an unspecified date.

Monday, April 22, 2013

Report: Israel covering up major biblical archeology find


Report: Israel covering up major biblical archeology find

Monday, April 22, 2013 |  Israel Today Staff


Israel's Makor Rishon Hebrew daily reported at the weekend that a major biblical archeology find in the Judean hills south of Jerusalem is apparently being covered up by the government.
Last week, a member of the Kfar Etzion Field School in the Eztion Bloc of Jewish communities stumbled across an ancient ornate pillar as he descended into a cave in the Judean hills.
The pillar and its attached capital clearly belonged to a royal structure, and local archaeologists said it certainly dated back to the times of the Judean kings, if not David himself.
The undisturbed nature of the find suggested that a large part of the ancient palace was probably buried intact beneath where the pillar was found.
"We appear to have a complete castle here," Kfar Etzion Field School Director Yaron Rosental told the newspaper. "Those who lived here after it did not know of its existence and thus, instead of using its stones to build a new building as was the usual practice, left it intact."
But, when Rosental contacted Israel's Antiquities Authority, he was harshly rebuffed and told to "keep [his] mouth shut" about the find.
The Antiquities Authority later confirmed to Makor Rishon that the find exists, and had actually been first discovered last year, but that present political sensitivities prevent archaeologist from exploring the site at this time.
It was pointed out that the find is located in territory claimed by the Palestinian Authority. Uncovering a major and even unprecedented archaeological site that solidifies the ancient Jewish presence in and control of these lands could upset the peace process.

http://www.israeltoday.co.il/NewsItem/tabid/178/nid/23803/Default.aspx?hp=readmore