An Atlas in My Purse: Israel #8 - Dust and Stones of the Temple Mount

Shalom!

Yesterday was an adventure we were really looking forward to experiencing. Some time ago, as I looked for offbeat activities for us here in Jerusalem, I came across the Temple Mount Antiquities Salvage Operation. It’s an unusual opportunity to volunteer on an archaeological project and one that all of us, even Mom, could enjoy.

Arriving at the Temple Mount Sifting Project.

Let me briefly summarize the project. The Temple Mount has never been archaeologically investigated. Unfortunately, many Muslims who use the Temple Mount today have expressed a desire to prove that Israel never even had a Temple there. They have not respected the history of the Mount. A few years ago, they began to dig illegally on the Temple Mount. There, they have built a huge underground mosque. What did they do with the earth that had to be removed to make room for the mosque -- earth that contained the residue of history? They took more than four hundred truckloads of dirt at night and dumped it in the nearby Kidron Valley. These loads of earth contained centuries and millennia of archaeological information! Israeli archaeologists caught wind of what was going on and began to salvage the piles of earth. They’ve formed the Temple Mount Antiquities Salvage Operation and through this archaeologists and volunteers “sift” through the debris looking for bits and pieces of the ages.

Well in advance of our trip, I booked a two-hour sifting adventure for us. Yesterday was the day! We had a rather traumatic drive from our apartment to Emek Tsurim National Park outside the Old City walls where the sifting takes place. The map I had did not correspond to the real world. We couldn’t find the streets we needed and the streets we ended up taking were beyond belief. I shudder to think of that drive! But we made it!

We pulled into the unpaved parking lot of the Salvage Operation. The set up seems very rough -- a few sheds, some huge piles of stones and rubble and a long open-sided tent lined with sifting trays. It turned out that we were the only volunteers to sift that morning, so we received some very personal attention from the staff.

Our two-hour session started with a 30-minute presentation by Yval, one of the staff members. He gave us an excellent overview of the history of the Temple Mount. We found that his timeline really helped us put the history in order.

Krista rinses out a bucket of rubble into a sifting tray.

Then we started to sift! We started with about six inches of rubble in the bottom of a standard garden bucket. It had been covered in water overnight. We dumped the bucket’s contents onto the sifting screen -- something like a horizontal window screen -- and began to hose off the dirt. Who knew what we might find! Some have discovered coins or bits of jewelry. Others have found mosaic tiles or arrow heads. Then again, I read of one man who found a child’s toy car!

Yval had shown us the categories of the typical things we might find and, working in pairs, we started feeling our way through the pebbles and assorted bits of unidentified items. I was surprised at the size of the pebbles we had to look through -- many the size of peas. It was almost impossible to tell the difference between natural stone pebbles and pieces of mosaic carved by man. We were able to identify many bits of pottery -- they were the easiest even though many pieces were half the size of my smallest fingernail. After Krista and I thought we’d gone through our bucket of dirt, Yval checked our screen. How embarrassing! He found at least twice as much as we’d found and discarded half of what we’d set aside as possible artifacts.

Our spirits weren’t dampened. We just took another bucket and started again. This time we did better. Ultimately, among all the unnamed bits we found, we did come up with some specific things. Krista found a large piece of pottery that would have been part of a jar handle. She also found a piece of blue glass that might have been the eye of a statue and a piece of burnt bone that might have been from a Temple sacrifice or from the burning of the Temple or just from some crusader‘s dinner. Dad found a square bit of rusted metal. Mom found another large piece of a pottery jar. I found a fragment of Herodian painted plaster. It was very exciting as you’ll see from the photos below.

The Temple Mount Antiquities Salvage Operation has taken as their theme verse Psalm 102:15: “For Your servants have cherished her stones and favoured her dust.”

Yes, we were very dusty when we left Emek Tsurim, but this was a very good day!

Hot and tired on the Old City Walls.

During the afternoon, Krista and I headed to the Old City again and climbed up on the walls for a walk along the ramparts. We didn’t go too far -- it is a very difficult walk over uneven stones and many steps of odd heights and depths and is quite challenging when you’re also fighting heat and fatigue. But it was great fun. The views consist primarily of the walls and roofs of buildings just inside the walls. We saw cats, trash, sad bits of potted plants, lots of satellite dishes and laundry.

Today our primary goal was to take the Western Wall Tunnel Tour. We had tickets of the 11:50 am tour, so we used the morning to visit the nearby Jerusalem Archaeological Park, located outside the southern end of the Temple Mount. These beautifully presented ruins include the original southern steps of Herod’s Temple -- steps Yeshua and His disciples probably used a number of times. This spot was very moving for me on a previous visit and it was moving again. It was easy to imagine the people who must have walked these steps two thousand years ago.

As the morning ended, we reported to the entrance for Tunnel Tour. With a group of about 30 people, a young docent led us along the immense (immense!) stones of the Temple Mount that are now hidden underground. It was not an easy walk for Mom, but she persevered and made her way to the end! This tour is very impressive and we highly recommend it!

Could you eat that big swarma?

Afterward, Mom and Dad took a cab home. Krista and I returned to the Jewish Quarter and bought some shwarma for lunch. These two wraps containing lamb, grilled vegetables, hummus and fresh vegetables were so gigantic neither of us could finish it. Then we headed to the Wohl Archaeological Museum where we viewed the remains of Herodian homes and the burned ruins of a priest’s home -- places that were destroyed by the Romans following the destruction of the Temple. Both were fascinating.

At last, we started to head up through the Old City and soon found ourselves on the same lane we’d walked with Dad a few days before. We even passed by Sammy’s shop again. He called out to us to visit, but we were worn out and, thanking him for the invitation, explained we had to keep going if we were going to make it home.

This was an exhausting for all of us, but a day rich in history. Of course, you can’t escape history in Israel!

Here are a few more pictures Krista and I took in the last couple of days (click for bigger):

The Temple Mount Sifting Project