Recent Archaeological Finds

[Littleboy]

Ancient Hebrew text to return to Israel By REGAN E. DOHERTY, Associated Press Writer
2 hours, 24 minutes ago
 


JERUSALEM - For six decades, Sam Sabbagh carried a good luck charm — a parchment he found on the floor of a burned synagogue.

 
Turns out that parchment likely is more than 1,000 years old, a fragment of the most authoritative manuscript of the Hebrew Bible. His family plans to present it to a Jerusalem institute next week, officials said Thursday.

The parchment, about "the size of a credit card," is believed to be part of the Aleppo Codex manuscript of the Hebrew Bible, said Michael Glatzer, academic secretary of the Yad Ben Zvi institute.

It contains verses from the Book of Exodus describing the plagues in Egypt, including the words of Moses to Pharaoh, "Let my people go, that they may serve me."

In 1947, Sabbagh, then 17, picked up a piece of the manuscript off the floor of a synagogue in Aleppo, Syria. The synagogue had been burned the previous day in riots after the United Nations decided to partition Palestine, a step toward creating the Jewish state of Israel.

When Sabbagh later immigrated to Brooklyn, he carried the parchment around for years in a plastic pouch in his wallet, Glatzer said. Sabbagh used it as a good luck charm, even bringing it with him when he underwent open heart surgery.

About 20 years ago, a Jewish studies institute in Jerusalem named after Israel's second president, Yad Ben Zvi, learned of the fragment's existence. But it was unable to persuade Sabbagh to part with it.

After he died two years ago, his family decided to donate it to the institute.

The recovery "is important in the sense that we are getting the chance to unify the missing parts and put them in their original place," said Michael Maggen, who as head of paper conservation at the Israel Museum will oversee restoring the document.

The codex "is not just another manuscript — it's a landmark," Maggen said, mainly because it provides insights into key aspects of Hebrew grammar and pronunciation.

Portions of the codex that have already been retrieved are on display in the Shrine of the Book at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. The Sabbagh fragment would eventually join its counterparts there, Glatzer said.

Glatzer hopes that the parchment's recovery will encourage others to check their safety deposit boxes and attics for similar treasures.

"What (Sabbagh) did, others must have done," he said.

The codex, also known as the Masoretic Text, was written in Tiberias, next to the Sea of Galilee, in the 10th century and later brought to Jerusalem.

It then traveled to Cairo, after which, according to tradition, Moses Maimonides' grandson brought it to Syria. The elder Maimonides was a 12th-century Jewish scholar whose writings and rulings are still followed and studied.

"We have only about 60 percent of the codex — more than a third is still missing," said Aron Dotan, professor of Hebrew and Semitic languages at Tel Aviv University. The missing part includes most of the Torah, or Pentateuch, he said. The codex comprised the books of the Old Testament.

Although only a tiny scrap, the find is still noteworthy, he said.

"Every find is something, every new piece is something," he said. "It is an addition to what we have."

[Shammu]

Muslims sued for destroying Jewish Temple artifacts
Israeli citizens in court with landmark case over Judaism's holiest site
Posted: November 9, 2007
1:00 a.m. Eastern

By Aaron Klein
© 2007 WorldNetDaily.com

JERUSALEM – In an unprecedented legal move, Israeli citizens this week filed a criminal lawsuit against the Muslim custodians of Judaism's holiest site, the Temple Mount, alleging the Muslim trust destroyed Jewish antiquities, including a possible wall from the Second Jewish Temple.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's government this summer allowed the Mount's Waqf Islamic custodians to use bulldozers and other heavy equipment to dig a massive trench on the Temple Mount which the Waqf claimed was necessary to replace electrical cables outside mosques on the site.

Allowing the use of bulldozers at any sensitive archaeological site is extremely unusual, particularly at the Temple Mount, which experts say contains sealed layers of artifacts as shallow as two to three feet below the surface.

The Mount has never been properly excavated. Heavy equipment could easily damage any existing artifacts, stress Israeli experts, who assert the area should be excavated slowly and carefully by hand.

In September, after bulldozers dug a trench 1,300 feet long and five feet deep, the Muslim diggers reportedly came across a wall Israeli archaeologists believe may be remains of an area of the Second Jewish Temple known as the woman's courtyard.

Israel, however, blocked leading archeologists from surveying the massive damage Islamic authorities are accused of causing to the purported wall.

According to top archaeologists, the Waqf dig resulted in the destruction of scores of Temple-era artifacts. At one point during the dig, WND obtained a photo of the Waqf trench. In view in the picture, obtained in conjunction with Israel's Temple Institute, are concrete slabs broken by Waqf bulldozers and what appears to be a chopped-up carved stone from Jewish Temple-era antiquity.

Eilat Mazar, a leading Temple Mount archaeologist, confirmed the slabs in the photo were antiquities with Temple-era attributes. She said inspection of the slabs was required to verify its authenticity.

The Waqf repeatedly denied it found or destroyed any Temple artifacts.

But this week, 150 Israeli citizens filed a criminal complaint against Waqf officials, utilizing a section of the country's penal code that allows private citizens to bring criminal suits against an individual or group that did wrong, including in cases in which the defendant is accused of destroying property.

"The Temple Mount is the property of Jewish nation and has been for thousands of years," Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, the lead council for the lawsuit, told WND.

"What the Waqf did was clearly destroying property of the Jewish people by throwing away and chopping through artifacts; therefore the Jewish people have a right to indict Wafq officials," said Nitsana, director of the Shurat HaDin Israeli Law Center.

The suit has been passed to Israeli Attorney General Menachem Mazuz, who will consider whether to immediately file legal charges against the Waqf. If Mazuz declines, the Supreme Court will hear the case and then can decide whether to recommend criminal charges. Charges can result in prison time for Wafq leaders, explained Darshan-Leitner.

"The Waqf leaders belong in prison, and since Israel's government is refusing to protect Jewish heritage and property, we will prosecute the WAQF ourselves," she said. "This legal action is a moral obligation, not only for the Jewish people, but also for the Christian community, which has significant interests in safeguarding the Temple Mount as well."

History of destruction

The last time the Waqf conducted a large dig on the Temple Mount – during construction 10 years ago of a massive mosque at an area referred to as Solomon's Stables – the Wafq reportedly disposed truckloads of dirt containing Jewish artifacts from the First and Second Temple periods.

After media reported the disposals, Israeli authorities froze the construction permit given to the Wafq, and the dirt was transferred to Israeli archaeologists for analysis. The Israeli authorities found scores of Jewish Temple relics in the nearly disposed dirt, including coins with Hebrew writing referencing the Temple, part of a Hasmonean lamp, several other Second Temple lamps, Temple-period pottery with Jewish markings, a marble pillar shaft and other Temple period artifacts. The Waqf was widely accused of attempting to hide evidence of the existence of the Jewish Temples.

Temples 'never existed'

Most Palestinian leaders routinely deny well-documented Jewish ties to the Temple Mount.

Speaking to WND in a recent interview, Waqf official and chief Palestinian Justice Taysir Tamimi claimed the Jewish Temples "never existed."

"About these so-called two Temples, they never existed, certainly not at the Haram Al- Sharif (Temple Mount)," said Tamimi, who is considered the second most important Palestinian cleric after Muhammad Hussein, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem.

"Israel started since 1967 making archaeological digs to show Jewish signs to prove the relationship between Judaism and the city, and they found nothing. There is no Jewish connection to Israel before the Jews invaded in the 1880s," said Tamimi.

The Palestinian cleric denied the validity of dozens of digs verified by experts worldwide revealing Jewish artifacts from the First and Second Temples, tunnels that snake under the Temple Mount and more than 100 ritual immersion pools believed to have been used by Jewish priests to cleanse themselves before services. The cleansing process is detailed in the Torah.

Asked about the Western Wall, Tamimi said the structure was a tying post for Muhammad's horse and that it is part of the Al Aqsa Mosque, even though the wall predates the mosque by more than 1,000 years.

"The Western Wall is the western wall of the Al Aqsa Mosque," he said. "It's where Prophet Muhammad tied his animal which took him from Mecca to Jerusalem to receive the revelations of Allah."

The Palestinian media also regularly claim the Jewish Temples never existed.

Judaism's holiest site

While the Temple Mount is the holiest site in Judaism, Muslims say it is their third holiest site.

The First Jewish Temple was built by King Solomon in the 10th century B.C. It was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 B.C. The Second Temple was rebuilt in 515 B.C. after Jerusalem was freed from Babylonian captivity. It was expanded by King Herod in 19 B.C. shortly before the birth of Jesus. That temple was destroyed by the Roman Empire in A.D. 70. Each temple stood for a period of about four centuries.

The Jewish Temple was the center of religious Jewish worship. It housed the Holy of Holies, which contained the Ark of the Covenant and was said to be the area upon which God's "presence" dwelt. The Dome of the Rock now sits on the site and the Al Aqsa Mosque is adjacent.

The temple served as the primary location for the offering of sacrifices and was the main gathering place in Israel during Jewish holidays.

The Temple Mount compound has remained a focal point for Jewish services over the millennia. Prayers for a return to Jerusalem have been uttered by Jews since the Second Temple was destroyed, according to Jewish tradition. Jews worldwide pray facing toward the Western Wall, a portion of an outer courtyard of the Temple left intact.

The Al Aqsa Mosque was constructed around A.D. 709 to serve as a shrine near another shrine, the Dome of the Rock, which was built by an Islamic caliph. Al Aqsa was meant to mark where Muslims came to believe Muhammad, the founder of Islam, ascended to heaven.

Jerusalem is not mentioned in the Quran. Islamic tradition states Muhammad took a journey in a single night from "a sacred mosque" – believed to be in Mecca in southern Saudi Arabia – to "the farthest mosque" and from a rock there ascended to heaven. The farthest mosque later became associated with Jerusalem.

[Soldier4Christ]

Archaeologist uncovers
Scriptures' famed wall 
Emergency dig finds tower
built by Bible's Nehemiah


Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad may want to see Israel wiped off the map and its Jews sent to Europe or Alaska, but an archaeological discovery announced this week marks an event recorded in the Bible when his country – Persia, at the time – literally helped put the Jewish people back on the map in their capital city of Jerusalem.

Dr. Eilat Mazar, one of Israel's top archaeologists, ended her presentation Wednesday to the 13th Annual Conference of the Ingeborg Rennert Center for Jerusalem Studies on "New Studies on Jerusalem," with a surprise announcement. She had discovered remnants of the fifth century B.C. wall built by Nehemiah, the account recorded in the Old Testament book of the same name.

According to the biblical account, Nehemiah served as cupbearer for the Persian King Artaxerxes in the city of Susa. The Persians had conquered the Babylonian empire that had destroyed Jerusalem in 586 B.C. and taken most of the inhabitants of Judah into captivity in what is now modern Iraq.

The account reads:

    In the month of Nisan, in the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes, when wine was before him, I took up the wine and gave it to the king. Now I had not been sad in his presence.

    And the king said to me, "Why is your face sad, seeing you are not sick? This is nothing but sadness of the heart."

    Then I was very much afraid. I said to the king, "Let the king live forever! Why should not my face be sad, when the city, the place of my fathers' graves, lies in ruins, and its gates have been destroyed by fire?"

    Then the king said to me, "What are you requesting?"

    So I prayed to the God of heaven. And I said to the king, "If it pleases the king, and if your servant has found favor in your sight, that you send me to Judah, to the city of my fathers' graves, that I may rebuild it."

Nehemiah's rebuilding of the city began with its walls, a project that was resisted by hostile neighbors who had occupied the area around Jerusalem in the Jews' absence.

    But when Sanballat and Tobiah and the Arabs and the Ammonites and the Ashdodites heard that the repairing of the walls of Jerusalem was going forward and that the breaches were beginning to be closed, they were very angry. And they all plotted together to come and fight against Jerusalem and to cause confusion in it. And we prayed to our God and set a guard as a protection against them day and night.

With tools in one hand and weapons in the other, Nehemiah's workmen toiled dawn to dusk, completing the wall in a record 52 days.

Archaeological evidence for Nehemiah's project has been lacking. Jerusalem has been rebuilt, destroyed and rebuilt in the almost 2,500 years since.

Mazar, who is perhaps best known for her recent excavation that many believe has revealed the palace of King David, was working on an emergency project to shore up remains of a tower long believed to date from the Hasmonean period, 142-37 B.C., that was in danger of collapsing.

According to an account of the conference in "The Trumpet," Mazar said, "Under the tower, we found the bones of two large dogs – and under those bones a rich assemblage of pottery and finds from the Persian period. No later finds from that period were found under the tower."

Had the tower been built during the Hasmonean dynasty, the Persian-era artifacts would represent an unexplained chronological gap of several hundred years. The tower, said Mazar, had to have been built much earlier than previously thought and the pottery data placed it at the time the Bible says Nehemiah was building it.

Todd Bolen, of BiblePlaces.com, noted that excavations in the Philistine city of Ashkelon during the same Persian era, found 800 dog burials like those uncovered by Mazar.

Nehemiah described 10 gates in the wall around Jerusalem as well as several towers designed to protect the entrances to the city, among them the Tower of the Hundred, the Tower of Hananel, the Tower of the Ovens, and an unnamed tower "projecting from the upper house of the king at the court of the guard" in the vicinity of Mazar's most recent dig.

WND reported Mazar's confirmation that what appeared to be chopped-up carved stone, unearthed by recent trenching on the Temple Mount by the holy site's Islamic custodians, were indeed antiquities with attributes of the Second Temple-era during the ministry of Jesus.

Mazar has urged Christians to help save the holy site.

"The Christian world and all those who care about safeguarding the Temple Mount must immediately join us in our efforts to protect the holy site and demand that the Israeli government stop the Waqf construction," she said.

"The Temple Mount is important to people of all religions. Now is the time to act before more antiquities are erased."

[Soldier4Christ]

This is one of the most important finds to the Jewish people as well as Christians and one that will cause a great deal of problems in these times that we are in.

[Littleboy]

This is one of the most important finds to the Jewish people as well as Christians and one that will cause a great deal of problems in these times that we are in.

Praise God..

[nChrist]

This is one of the most important finds to the Jewish people as well as Christians and one that will cause a great deal of problems in these times that we are in.

The Holy Bible is the ultimate TRUTH, and we always knew that it was. Many recent discoveries provide hard scientific PROOF that the Holy Bible is unquestionably TRUE. For Christians, this should serve to strengthen our faith. For unbelievers, it should cause them to take another look at the Bible and question their false religions.

However, it could also cause those from false religions to lash out at the TRUTH. After all, it isn't nice to be shown proof that everything you believe is false. It just isn't convenient.

Love In Christ,
Tom

   

[Shammu]

Majadle Justifies Destruction of Temple Remains
4 Kislev 5768, November 14, '07
 
by Gil Ronen

(IsraelNN.com) The Jewish State's first Arab minister, Raleb Majadle, declared Wednesday that as far as Jerusalem's Temple Mount is concerned, Israeli sovereignty is nonexistent and Islam rules. The minister spoke in his official capacity as Minister of Science, Culture and Sport, from the Knesset podium, in response to a parliamentary question by MK Aryeh Eldad (NU/NRP).

MK Eldad's question referred to the unsupervised digging carried out by the Muslim authorities (the "Wakf") on the Temple Mount during the summer, by means of heavy machinery. "I received a series of photographs of digs on the Temple Mount near the Dome of the Rock," the parliamentary question read. "The police are present on the scene but there is no supervision by the Department of Antiquities regarding finds taken out of the digs, and there is a serious concern that they could be destroyed by the Wakf. What will be done in the short term to stop the destruction of the remains of the Temple?"

Speaking before the Knesset plenum, Majadle replied that the digs carried out on the Mount were coordinated, accompanied and supervised by the Antiquities Authority. "I have worked in recent months to create understandings between the Antiquities Authority and the Islamic Wakf because I believe that this is the only way," he said.

MK Eldad asked Majadle pointedly from the plenum floor: "Does Israeli law apply on the Temple Mount or does it not?"

Majadle answered: "In my opinion, certainly not." Eldad reminded him that in answering parliamentary questions he speaks for the entire government, but Majadle was unfazed: "I will say my opinion. Before I am a government minister I am first and foremost a person and a citizen and a Muslim. With all due respect for the law, the law was meant to respect the religion, the person and the citizen and protect him, and not the other way around, enslave him," he explained. "Therefore I say clearly: Al-Aksa, Al-Haram al-Sharif [as the Temple Mount is called by Muslims – ed.], cannot be under the authority of Israeli law."

Eldad interrupted him repeatedly, reminding him that he had sworn allegiance to the State of Israel and its laws, but Majadle insisted: "I hereby inform you, esteemed MK Eldad, that I may be a minister for one, two or ten years but I was born a Muslim, and a Muslim I shall die.  I respect Israeli law...  but if there is a contradiction between the law and my deep faith as a Muslim, I announce that I will know what to choose."

Immediately after this exchange, MK Eldad wrote to the Prime Minister demanding that Majadle be fired from the government. In addition, he asked the Attorney General to open a police investigation against him, on suspicion of breach of trust.

Majadle's response was to repeat, this time in writing: "I respect Jewish law and recognize the sensitive situation in the Temple Mount and act accordingly, but I believe as a Muslim that in times of peace the holy places must be outside of the political dispute. My opinion is that they must be administered according to religious laws and not be placed under any earthly sovereign."

Majadle Justifies Destruction of Temple Remains

[Soldier4Christ]

Roman street uncovered in Western Wall tunnels

The remains of an ancient terraced street dating back to the Roman Period have been uncovered in the Western Wall tunnels, the Israel Antiquities Authority announced Wednesday.

The street, which likely led to the nearby Temple Mount, dates back nearly 2,000 years to when the city was called Aelia Capitolina, during the second to fourth centuries.

The site, which was uncovered in archeological excavations over the past year, is a side street connecting two major roads in the area, said Jon Seligman, the Antiquities Authority Jerusalem regional archeologist.

The ancient street is paved with large flagstones and is amazingly well-preserved. It is demarcated on both sides by walls built of ashlar stones.

The recent finding is the latest indication that even after they destroyed the Second Temple in 70 CE, the Romans continued to value the Temple Mount as one of the main urban focal points of activity in the city.

Various artifacts were discovered in the excavations, including pottery, glass vessels and dozens of coins that all date to the construction of the street and the period after it was abandoned.

[Soldier4Christ]

Biblical Queen Jezebel's official seal confirmed
Hated woman accused of prostitution, murder, sorcery – tossed from window, ravaged by dogs

 Jezebel, the queen whose name became synonymous with all things lewd and wicked, probably wielded a fair bit of power in ancient Israel, suggests a stone document seal newly traced to the Biblical "bad girl."

Originally discovered in Israel in 1964, the intricate seal was suspected all along to belong to Queen Jezebel, but confusion over the letters engraved on the stone left some uncertainty.

Recently, closer scrutiny of the seal's engraving revealed markings characteristic of royal objects.

"The lion-sphinx with female head and female Isis-Hathor crown, which is unique, this clearly points to a queen," said Marjo Korpel, an Old Testament scholar at the University of Utrecht who conducted the research.

The seal confirms that Jezebel, who eventually met a gory demise, was a powerful figure in the ancient world who conducted business independent of her husband.

Complete results of the University of Utrecht study are published in a recent volume of the Journal for Semitics.

Royal symbols borrowed from Egypt

Jezebel, whose life in the 9th century B.C. is chronicled in the Bible, was married to King Ahab of Israel.

As a Phoenician, the Queen was considered pagan and attempted to sway the people of Israel to abandon their God and accept her chief deity Baal, partly through forging her husband's seal on documents, according to the scriptures.

The Bible says nothing of her own seal, but archaeologists have long believed that the stone discovered in 1964 was Jezebel's, despite the ambiguity of the symbols and the name depicted on it.

Multiple icons on the seal, as well as its above-average size, indicate that it belonged to a queen, the recent investigations concluded.

"The lotus (below the Horus falcon) was a symbol of gender definition and refers to a female owner," Korpel told LiveScience, "[while] the winged sun disk was a well-known symbol of royalty in and outside Israel."

Other symbols on the seal also reinforce the connection to a monarch, such as the Horus and double-cobra, a figure probably adopted from Egypt, she said.

A misspelling of the name "yzbl" — the queen's moniker in ancient Hebrew — also had archaeologists confused.

However, by comparing the seal to similar examples from the time, Korpel found that an upper edge that had broken off likely contained the two missing letters that would have correctly spelled Jezebel's name.

Pagan queen had power

With her own seal, Queen Jezebel was able to exert a powerful influence upon people around her, much like the Egyptian queens, Korpel said.

"The biblical texts already prove that she was a powerful woman. The queens in Egypt ... all have in common their prominent roles in religion, politics and representational art, and their status as principal wife. This also seems to count for Queen Jezebel," said Korpel.

Unlike Egypt, however, biblical Israel did not look favorably upon powerful women.

Jezebel was ultimately perceived as a threat and foreign idol worshipper, accused of prostitution, murder and sorcery and tossed from her window to be ravaged by dogs.

[Soldier4Christ]

Roman road, bath unearthed near Jewish temple site


Israeli archaeologists have unearthed the remains of a second century terraced street and bath house which provide vital clues about the layout of Roman Jerusalem.

The Israel Antiquities Authority said the 30-metre (90-foot) alley was used by the Romans to link the central Cardo thoroughfare with a bath house and with a bridge to the Temple Mount, once the site of Jerusalem's ancient Jewish temple.

"We find bits of Roman road all the time but this discovery helped us piece together a picture of Roman Jerusalem," Jon Seligman, Jerusalem regional archaeologist, told Reuters at the site. "It was a real Eureka moment."

The Romans razed the second Jewish temple during the sacking of Jerusalem in 70 AD but later built a colony in the area, and called it Aelia Capitolina.

Archaeologists say the street is remarkably well preserved. After clearing away mounds of earth, workers are painstakingly restoring the alley, which runs between walls of ashlar stone and is paved with large flagstones.

TUNNEL TOURS

The remains of the street, which now runs below a sewage channel and offices belonging to the Chief Rabbi of the Western Wall remnant of the temple compound, will form part of Jerusalem's Western Wall tunnel tours for tourists.

Archaeologists also discovered the outside wall of a large building which they believe is a Roman bath house because of the latrines outside and pipes which appear to have operated an under floor heating system.

 They will start excavation on that site shortly.

The Antiquities Authority said the discovery of the alley, a stone's throw from the Western Wall, may add weight to the theory that the Temple Mount complex was a focal point of Roman life even after the destruction of the temple itself.

The complex is also revered by Muslims as al-Haram al-Sharif (Noble Sanctuary) and houses Islam's third-holiest mosque, making it Jerusalem's most contested site and giving it a pivotal role in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Seligman said the newly-discovered alley once led to an important bridge over a ravine known during the time of Jesus as the Valley of the Cheese makers.

[Soldier4Christ]

Elusive biblical Jerusalem wall finally found, Israeli archaeologist says

A biblical wall that has eluded archaeologists for years has finally been found, according to an Israeli scholar.

A team of archaeologists in Jerusalem has uncovered what they believe to be part of a wall mentioned in the Bible's Book of Nehemiah.

The discovery, made in Jerusalem's ancient City of David, came as a result of a rescue attempt on a tower which was in danger of collapse, said Eilat Mazar, head of the Institute of Archaeology at the Shalem Center, a Jerusalem-based research and educational institute, and leader of the dig.

Artifacts including pottery shards and arrowheads found under the tower suggested that both the tower and the nearby wall are from the 5th century B.C., the time of Nehemiah, according to Mazar. Scholars previously thought the wall dated to the Hasmonean period (142-37 B.C.).

The findings suggest that the wall is actually part of the same city wall the Bible says Nehemiah rebuilt, Mazar said. The Book of Nehemiah (chapters 3-6) gives a detailed description of construction of the walls, destroyed earlier by the Babylonians.

"We were amazed," she said, noting that the discovery was made at a time when many scholars argued that the wall did not exist.

"This was a great surprise. It was something we didn't plan," Mazar said.

However, another scholar doubted whether the wall was biblical.

The first phase of the dig, completed in 2005, uncovered what Mazar believes to be the remains of King David's palace, built by King Hiram of Tyre and also mentioned in the Bible.

Ephraim Stern, professor emeritus of archaeology at Hebrew University and chairman of the state of Israel archaeological council, corroborated Mazar's claim. "The material she showed me is from the Persian period," the period of Nehemiah, he said. "I can sign on the date of the material she found."

Another scholar disputed the significance of the discovery.

Israel Finkelstein, professor of archaeology at Tel Aviv University, called the discovery "an interesting find," but said the pottery and other remains do not indicate that the wall was built in the time of Nehemiah. Because the debris was not connected to a floor or other structural part of the wall, the wall could have been built later, Finkelstein said.

"The wall could have been built, theoretically, in the Ottoman period," he said. "It's not later than the pottery — that's all we know."

[Shammu]

Syrians discover ancient jar in ruins

By ALBERT AJI, Associated Press Writer Sat Dec 1, 5:56 PM ET

DAMASCUS, Syria - Syrian archeologists have discovered an ancient glass jar containing an infant's ashes at one of the Mideast's most famous archaeological sites.

The discovery of the 2nd century A.D. jar amid the ruins of Palmyra was the first of its kind, shedding light on previously unknown funeral practices common at the time, Khalil Hariri, a senior Syrian archaeological official, told The Associated Press late Friday.

Archeologists unearthed the jar from a newly discovered cemetery within Palmyra, said Hariri. The ashes inside the container, which measured 9.5 inches in height and 7 inches in diameter, revealed that the infant had been cremated, he added.

Hariri said the mission discovered pottery, furniture and lamps in the cemetery, as well as glass vials in which mourners put their tears. He could not provide further details, pending studies on the new discoveries.

Palmyra, located some 150 miles northeast of Syria's capital Damascus, was the center of an Arab client state to the Roman empire and thrived on the caravan trades across the desert to Mesopotamia and Persia, especially after the decline of ancient Petra in Jordan.

Under Queen Zenobia, the city rebelled against Roman rule and briefly carved out an independent desert Arab kingdom before being re-conquered and razed by the Romans.

Syrians discover ancient jar in ruins

[Shammu]

Archaeologists find 2,000-year-old palace in east Jerusalem

7 hours ago

JERUSALEM (AFP) — Israeli archaeologists said on Wednesday they have unearthed a palace complex dating back to the first century AD in an Arab neighbourhood just outside the walls of Jerusalem's Old City.

Archaeologists discovered a structure that is "relatively big in size and subdivided into main halls," said Doron Ben-Ami, the project director, adding that coins on site dated the structure to the time of the Jews' Second Temple.

Ben-Ami said more work was necessary but that there was a "high probability" that the structure was a palace built by Queen Helena, a wealthy Iraqi aristocrat who converted to Judaism and moved to Jerusalem around 40 AD.

The structure was destroyed 30 years later, when Roman troops violently suppressing a Jewish revolt razed much of Jerusalem to the ground, including the Second Temple of which only the Western Wall remains today, he said.

The excavation is being carried out in a car park just opposite the City of David, the site of Jerusalem in ancient times and now an outdoor archaeological museum in the densely-populated Palestinian suburb of Silwan.

The suburb is part of Arab east Jerusalem, which Israel occupied in the 1967 Middle East war and annexed soon thereafter, a move not recognised by the international community.

Palestinians, who see east Jerusalem as the capital of their future state, have long accused Israel of confiscating land in the Arab suburbs and of using archaeological projects to bolster Jewish claims to the area.

The site includes remains from the Islamic and Byzantine eras as well, including a large Byzantine structure built atop the ruins of the palace that incorporated some of the debris left behind from its destruction.

Ben-Ami said the latest excavation indicates that the City of David is much larger than previously thought, indicating that Israeli archaeologists may pursue further excavations in the area.

Project leaders also hope to eventually use the site for parking for the estimated 400,000 people who visit the City of David each year.

Archaeologists find 2,000-year-old palace in east Jerusalem

[Shammu]

2nd Temple palace uncovered
Etgar Lefkovits , THE JERUSALEM POST    Dec. 5, 2007

Israeli archeologists have uncovered a monumental Second Temple structure in a parking lot just outside the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem opposite the Temple Mount which was likely the ancient palace of Queen Helena, the Israel Antiquities Authority announced Wednesday.

The site, which has been unearthed during a six-month 'salvage' excavation in the Givati parking lot just outside the Dung Gate ahead of the planned expansion of the Western Wall car park, also indicates that the ancient City of David was much larger than previously thought, said archeologist Doron Ben-Ami, who is directing the dig at the site.

The "monumental" edifice, which was destroyed by the Romans when they demolished the Second Temple in 70 CE, was dated to the end of the Second Temple Period by pottery and stone vessels, as well as an assortment of coins from that time, Ben-Ami said.

According to the director of the dig, the elaborate edifice, which is an anomaly in the landscape of the Lower City at the end of the Second Temple period - which was marked with modest buildings - was probably a palace built by Queen Helena, a wealthy aristocrat fro modern-day Iraq who converted to Judaism and moved to Jerusalem with her sons.

Helena became known for her generosity in helping the city's poor during a famine, and was buried in Jerusalem.

The archeologists carrying out the dig have not yet found any inscription to identify the building they uncovered, but the excavation director said that there was a "high probability" that the site was indeed the 2,000-year-old palace of Queen Helena.

"We need more evidence to decide, but almost everything fits," Ben-Ami said.

The well-preserved structure being uncovered in the ongoing excavation is an impressive architectural complex that includes massive foundations; walls, some of which are preserved to a height in excess of five meters and built of stones that weigh hundreds of kilograms; halls that are preserved to a height of at least two stories; a basement level that was covered with vaults; remains of polychrome frescoes, water installations and ritual baths.

The narrow openings that were discovered in the basement level of the structure were likely used by its inhabitants to flee shortly before the site's destruction by the Romans nearly 2,000 years ago, he said.

The elaborate building was destroyed by dismantling the walls of the large structure, causing the massive stone walls and ceilings from the upper stores to collapse in on the basement.

The large edifice was overlain with remains that date to later periods: Byzantine, Roman and Early Islamic, while below it there are remains from the Early Hellenistic period and even artifacts from the time of the First Temple.

"It is like a open history book of Jerusalem," Ben-Ami concluded.

2nd Temple palace uncovered

[Shammu]

I think God has being doing a little here and there, and soon I think He will give one huge blow to the mind!!

I am humbled........