As readers of this blog will know, my research into the Temple Mount over the years has led to the finding of the location of where the Ark stood in Solomon’s Temple. I believe that this is as close as we may ever come to the finding of the lost Ark. Now, with the latest Indiana Jones movie due out next week, after a gap of 19 years, people’s minds go back to the original Raiders of the Lost Ark movie made in 1981. This, together with the latest claim in a long line of claims of finding the Ark, reminds me of the links (many inadvertently!) we have had to this search.

Thought that readers might find some of these links interesting or at at least a bit of light relief!

My wife, Kathleen was brought up from age 1 to 8 near the Hill of Tara, in County Meath, Ireland where certain believe the Ark to have been buried by the prophet Jeremiah after the fall of Jerusalem. Here is a picture of her, taken on a visit in 1997, on the hill of Tara next to the illegal excavations carried out by a group searching for the Ark of the Covenant:

• We lived for 4 years in the Ethiopian Quarter in Jerusalem where the devout Ethiopian Orthodox residents took it for a fact that the artefact so carefully guarded by the monks at Axum was indeed the Ark of the Covenant. “Did we not know that a group of Israeli soldiers had twice tried to wrest it from the Ethiopians and recover it to Israel?”

• During the eighties, we worked on a design project with Vendyl Jones, the Texan self-styled archaeologist who claimed to be the inspiration for Indiana Jones. His claim has been debunked, with the honour going to the dog of George Lucas (co-producer of the film), who was with him when he wrote the story.

• The original opportunity for me to measure and draw up Warren’s Gate in 1981, came from a group of rabbis’ illegal excavation of this gate for the purpose of finding the Ark deep beneath the Temple Mount.

(Now they get a bit more ridiculous!)

• When we were recently leaving Australia for the UK, I tried to leave behind my battered fedora, veteran of many Israeli digs and Aussie bush expeditions, but my son Joel would not let me, even though I had a new Akubra!

• Finally, I can’t stop some wags from playing the theme tune from “Raiders of the Lost Ark” when I walk in to give a lecture!

BTW, for an overview of the story of the journeyings of the Ark see our book: “From Sinai to Jerusalem”.

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Their website gives an overview of some of the most important finds that were exhibited in the Archaeology Wing. One of the finds shown here is the partially broken “Trumpeting Stone” which was found near the southwest corner of the Temple Mount during the 1968-78 excavations, led by the late Prof. Benjamin Mazar. Here is a reconstruction drawing of the “Trumpeting Stone”, which was placed at the top of this corner of the Temple Mount.

The Hebrew inscription, which was found on the stone, reads “l’bet hatqia l’hakh…” The most likely translation of this incomplete inscription is “to the place of trumpeting to announce”. This stone was originally located some 42m or 138 feet above street level and from that elevated position a trumpet call could be heard all over the city.
I have reason to believe that the stone was broken, not by the Romans in 70AD, but some 140 years ago. If you want to know ‘whodunit’, read my book The Quest, pp. 57-60.

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The whole “painstaking process of research and refinement”, to use Justin’s words, has caused me to look into problems which I had not previously addressed. In particular, the discoveries in Jerusalem over the last few years, especially in the City of David, made it necessary for me to produce completely new reconstruction drawings of Jerusalem in the various periods - a very exciting project indeed! I have also enjoyed working with Maltings Partnership, who have rendered my drawings into works of tremendous beauty.

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Let us first examine the wall. There are three different layers of stone courses visible, see illustration below (a similar picture appears in Todd Bolen’s blog). The lowest courses are Herodian. They were built by King Herod the Great, who began building the new Temple Mount in 19 B.C. Seven courses can be seen above ground, but there are many more below the surface. Above these stones are four courses of large stones which were laid in the Umayyad period (around 700 A.D.). Both types of masonry are so strong and well built that, up till now, no earthquake has been able to move these walls. The big earthquake of 1927 caused the destruction of the El Aqsa mosque, but not even a crack appeared in the Herodian masonry! The upper third part of the Western Wall is made up of small stones. It is in this section that some stones are crumbling.

There are legends about this upper section of the wall, one of which claims that it was built in the 19th century by Sir Moses Montefiore, a Jewish philantropist. He indeed tried to buy the Western Wall and the adjacent area to facilitate Jewish prayers, but his efforts came to nothing.

It is difficult to say when this upper portion was built, as it has no distinctive masonry. It could date from any period after the Early Muslim time, i.e. Fatimid, Crusader, Mamluk or Turkish. The top three courses were added by the Muslim Religious Council as part of general repair work. This upper third part of the wall is, of course, the back wall of the western colonnade.

We must ask ourselves the question why the upper parts of the Temple Mount walls suffer so much from crumbling and/or bulging. Very large bulging parts in the southern and eastern walls had to be rebuilt a couple of years ago.

I believe that it is caused by the renewal and renovation programme undertaken on the Temple Mount by the Muslim Religious Council. Many walls and pavements have been “repaired” by pointing in between the stone courses. If this is not done properly, it can cause problems such as bulging and the subsequent collapse of walls.

Ancient walls were built with stone courses on both sides of the wall and a fill in between. This fill should have been made up of a hard core fill of broken stones set in lime, but often soil was mixed in with it. When it rains the walls get wet, including the inner fill. The ancient mortar, made of lime and an aggregate, such as sand, gravel or sometimes ground up pottery, is porous and lets the water seep out through the gaps in between the stones. Such walls can ‘breathe’ as it were.

Over the last 30 years or so, an extensive programme has been going on on the Temple Mount, where old walls were refaced with new stone and the joints in between stone courses of old buildings have been filled with Portland cement. This modern cement is very hard and seals off the spaces in between the stones. Walls still absorb rain water, because stone is porous. However, once the inner core is wet, the water cannot seep out, causing a swelling inside the wall itself. Over time, more water is absorbed until the swelling is so large that it causes one of the sides of the wall to bulge, usually the outer side, as there is no counter pressure. Individual stones can be crushed by the movement of the stones. This is the cause of the crumbling and bulging of the upper parts of the Temple Mount walls and also of other buildings on the mount itself. If this situation remains unchecked, more sections of the walls will bulge, crumble and eventually collapse. So, watch your head when you stand at the foot of the Western Wall!

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The Inaugural conference of the Yeshiva University Center for Israel Studies,
Honoring Professor Louis H. Feldman
May 11 • Noon – 6:00 pm
Yeshiva University Museum at the Center for Jewish History
15 West 16th Street
Noon – 1:00 pm • Viewing of “Imagining the Temple: The Models of Leen Ritmeyer”

Session 1, 1: 00 – 3:30 pm

From the Tabernacle to the Dead Sea Scrolls
Chair: David Horwitz, Yeshiva University

Gary A. Anderson, University of Notre Dame
The Inauguration of the Tabernacle Service at Sinai

Shawn Zelig Aster, Yeshiva University
Centralization of Worship in the First Temple and Israelite Religious Belief

Shalom Holtz, Yeshiva University
Temple as Asylum and God as Asylum in the Psalms

Lawrence H. Schiffman, New York University
The Temple Scroll: A Utopian Temple Plan from Second Temple Times

Session 2, 3:45 – 6:00 pm

The Second Temple: Between Rome and Eternity
Chair: Moshe Bernstein, Yeshiva University

Menachem Mor, Haifa University
The Jewish and Samaritan Temples: Religious Competition in the Second Temple Period

Miriam Pucci Ben Zeev, Ben Gurion University
From Tolerance to Destruction: Roman Policy and Jewish Temple

Joshua Schwartz and Yehoshua Peleg, Bar Ilan University
Notes on the Virtual Reconstruction of the Herodian Period Temple and Courtyards

Leen Ritmeyer, Trinity Southwest University
Envisioning the Sanctuaries of Israel—The Academic and Creative Process of Archaeological Model Making

May 12 • 9:00 am – 5:30 pm
Stern College for Women
Geraldine Schottenstein Cultural Center
239 East 34th Street (between 2nd and 3rd Avenues)

Session 3, 9:00 – 11:30 am

The Jerusalem Temple in Medieval Christianity and Islam
Chair: David Berger, Yeshiva University

Frank Peters, New York University
Ruined Expectations: Christians and Muslims and the Jerusalem Temple

Moshe Sokolow, Yeshiva University
Fadai’l al-Quds: Jerusalem, The Temple and The Rock in Muslim Literature

Vivian B. Mann, Jewish Theological Seminary of America
Imagining the Temple in Late Medieval Spanish Altarpieces

Session 4, 12:30 – 2:45 pm

The Jerusalem Temple in Medieval and Early Modern Thought
Chair: Elisheva Carlebach, Queens College and the Graduate Center, CUNY

Jonathan Dauber, Yeshiva University
Images of the Temple in Sefer ha-Bahir

Mordechai Z. Cohen, Yeshiva University
God Dwelling in the Sanctuary? Interpretive Strategies of Maimonides, Nahmanides and Sefer ha-Hinnukh

Jacob J. Schacter, Yeshiva University
Remembering the Temple: Commemoration and Catastrophe in Medieval Ashkenazi Culture

Matt Goldish, Ohio State University
The Temple of Jerusalem from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment

Session 5, 3:00 – 5:30 pm

The Jerusalem Temple in the Modern World
Chair: Joshua Zimmerman, Yeshiva University

Jess Olson, Yeshiva University,
“Jerusalem Rebuilt”: The Temple in the Fin-de-siècle Zionist Imagination

Maya Balakirsky Katz, Touro College
The Second Temple in Contemporary Orthodox Visual Culture

Ann Killebrew, Pennsylvania State University
Recent Excavations and Discoveries On and Near the Temple Mount

Robert O. Freedman, Johns Hopkins University
Digging the Temple Mount: Archaeology and the Arab-Israeli Conflict from the British Mandate to the Present

Concluding Remarks

Louis H. Feldman, Yeshiva University
Steven Fine, Yeshiva University

Attendance is free and open to the public.
Register at http://www.yu.edu/cis
or call (212) 960-0189

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More info later.

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A few days ago it was announced that remains from the First Temple period were found in a dig close to the Western Wall, see for example here. It is always exciting and encouraging to read about new archaeological finds, especially when they are so close to the Temple Mount. A very interesting seal was found as well, bearing the name of Netanyahu ben Yaush. There has been a plethora of finds made recently, which prove that Israel did exist as a nation in the Land and especially in Jerusalem, during the Biblical periods.

The reporting, however, was not quite accurate. In this place these finds were reported as “FIRST-EVER”, namely, that this was the first time ever that remains from the Iron Age finds have been found so close to the Temple Mount. That, of course, is not the case. The southern part of the Western Wall has actually been built on a cemetery from the First Temple period. Some of these tombs were cut through when the drain below the Herodian street was constructed, see:

This drain was first discovered and recorded by Charles Warren in the 1860’s. In one particular place, just north of Robinson’s Arch, the foundations of the Western Wall were built inside a destroyed Iron Age tomb. One can’t get closer than that. Other Iron Age tombs were found in the Temple Mount excavations by the late Prof. Benjamin Mazar at a distance of some 25 meters from the Western Wall. Similarly, the Southern Wall was built over First Temple remains, in one particular place over an Iron Age cistern just below the Triple Gate.

As I said before, it is very exciting to read about these finds, but one could wish that the reporters would do their homework a little better. A blooper like this headline should never have been published.

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This is exciting news, of course, as it indicates that the Temple Mount was occupied during the 8-6th century B.C. The place where it was found, near the south-east corner of the raised platform, is also highly significant. Archaeologists, such as Yuval Baruch, Sy Gittin and Ronnie Reich said that these finds may aid scholars in reconstructing the dimensions and boundaries of the Temple Mount during the First Temple Period.

For the location of the find, see the blue dot on this plan:

According to my analysis, this area was located inside the pre-Herodian square Temple Mount, see this plan:

The square Temple Mount is in yellow. Orange indicates the Hasmonean extension and Herod’s addition is in green.

In 1992 I published an article in Biblical Archaeology Review, Locating the Original Temple Mount, showing the location and boundaries of the Temple Mount during the Iron Age II period. It is well-known that Herod the Great doubled the size of the then-existing Temple Mount. According to Mishnah Middot, that Temple Mount was a square of 500 cubits. In my book The Quest, pp. 189-194, I have written that there are many reasons to suggest that this square mount was first built by King Hezekiah. Stones of the outer walls of this square mount can be seen at the north-west corner of the raised platform (the Step) and in the eastern Temple Mount wall near the Golden Gate. These architectural remains, of course, delineate the square Temple Mount and the new finds are a good indicator of the possible date of the construction of the square Temple Mount by King Hezekiah.

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Thursday 11/15
NEAR EAST ARCHAEOLOGICAL SOCIETY
Place: Town and Country Resort Hotel, San Diego, CA.
Moderator: Gary A. Byers (Associates for Biblical Research)
Time: 9:50 – 10:20 am
Title: 40 years on – Temple Mount research since 1967

Monday 11/19
THE SIMMONS FAMILY CHARITABLE FOUNDATION
18TH ANNUAL PROGRAM IN BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGY
Place: AMERICAN JEWISH UNIVERSITY, LOS ANGELOS
Moderator: Prof. Ziony Zevit
Time: 20.00 pm
Title: Two Temples Stood in Zion: How New Excavations, Old Photographs, Recent Observations and Ancient Texts Enable Us to See the Temples of Solomon and Herod
About 10 years ago, I gave a lecture at the same venue, which was well attended by an enthusiastic audience. I look forward to being there again.

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