So a Congressman, a Senator, and an Archaeologist walk onto the Temple Mount…

We’ve been hinting at some big stuff happening in our office. Well two weeks ago we had some very special guests. Dr. Barkay gave a tour of the Temple Mount to five members of the US Congress; Mac Thornberry, Cathy McMorris Rodgers, Henry Cuellar, Tom Graves, Steve Russell, and Oklahoma Senator James Lankford, as well as their families.

Temple Mount Tour Group

The Temple Mount, especially recently, has been at the center of many disputes and violence. Our guests thought that it was important to include the Temple Mount in their trip so that they could get a much better idea of the realities of the situation, and they weren’t wrong. Actually seeing the Temple Mount and the people who pray there, the guards, the police, the visitors, and the interactions among them all is a useful tool for better understanding the complexities of today’s political situation on the Temple Mount. Additionally, the Temple Mount is beautiful and every building and stone has a rich and fascinating history that makes the site better than some museums for understanding the history of Jerusalem.

We are so grateful to the delegation for choosing to tour with us. They asked really insightful questions and I think that they learned a lot from Dr. Barkay’s immense knowledge of history. Unfortunately, at 1:30 in the afternoon, the Temple Mount is only open to visitors for an hour. After going through security, we only had 40 minutes to spend on the Mount itself. Though as Dr. Barkay said, “I could spend weeks here talking about this place,” he did a very thorough, though brief, tour of all the major monuments and sites upon the Mount, and best of all, I got it on camera. We now have more videos (to be edited) and added to our Temple Mount Tour series on YouTube. At the end of our Temple Mount Tour, Gaby was asked about our project. Check out his answer!

 

Our Job

Part of our job as archaeologists is to make sure that people understand the past. We have a unique ability to share the history of the Temple Mount and will happily share that with anyone who is willing to listen. We are actively working to share our research in order to combat the Temple Denial Movement and make sure that people recognize the Jewish and Christian connection to the Temple Mount and that it isn’t ignored or overlooked. Our research can provide the evidence necessary to help people respond to the Temple Denial movement. It is part of our mission to have our scientific research encourage educated discussion on the history of the Temple Mount. We do this through the blog, our YouTube channel, and we hope to be able to publish our research soon.

If you support our mission, please consider donating to help our project continue doing it’s important research.

To get involved, go to www.half-shekel.org.

We have a winner!

Hi everyone! Happy Purim! I just wanted to announce the winners of our Purim lottery!

Irit Doron, Kalle Winner, Eitan Cohen, Avi Ofer, and Geula Palchan! Congratulations!

Our winners will receive one of our full color booklets about the project and our finds AND a full set of all three of our new arrowhead reproductions

What a great way to own a piece of history. The set includes our rare 10th century BCE arrowhead from the time of King Solomon, our Babylonian arrowhead possibly from the destruction of the First Temple, and our Hellenistic arrowhead possibly from the Channukkah story.

Don’t miss out on future raffles and prizes! Like our facebook page now!

It’s All Fun and Games!

Find of the Month: December

Alumah, age 10, holding an astragolos

Over Chanukkah, we had 1356 people come and sift with us! Out of the thousands of amazing finds recovered in the last week and the last month, our find of the month is this fantastic astragolos also commonly known as a game piece from the game of Knucklebones (though it isn’t the knuckles but rather the anklebones from the hind legs of sheep and goats that are used to play this game of chance). This artifact was found by the Bar Yosef family from Eli and seems to be the perfect fit for this fun-loving family! See Alumah, age 10, holding the astragolos found by her family.

The origin of Knucklebones is probably a more primitive form of dice. Sophocles ascribed the invention of knucklebones to Palamedes, who taught it to the Greeks during the Trojan War. It became one of the most popular games of chance in antiquity. The knucklebones, or astragaloi, were used like fivestones, dice, or jacks. The game is played with five small objects (10 with jacks) that were thrown in the air and caught in various ways such as on the back of the hand. Many have been found in funerary contexts and may have been intended to help the deceased entertain themselves through eternity.

Bone astragolos found by the Bar Yosef family in the sifting

Today, variations of this game with specific rules and combinations of throws and catches are still played in different contexts across the world. Here in Israel, children play “Chamesh Avanim,” which is similar in concept but played with small metal dice or cubes. (This archaeologist can admit that her nieces always beat her).

Sometimes these game pieces were also made out of glass, bronze, stone, and terracotta, or had a hole and were used as a bead. Most astragaloi come from Hellenistic or Roman contexts. In October, while sorting through a collection of bones found the day before, one of our staff noticed that one of the bones looked like it was made of glass. He had found a glass astragolos! Though there have been many glass astragaloi discovered in Greece, its dependents, and the Eastern Mediterranean, they are rare here in Israel. A few have been found in Samaria, Maresha, Dor, and Jaffa. Unless others are unpublished, this was the first glass astragaloi found in Jerusalem. More research will determine the significance of this find and refine its dating, so stay tuned for a future article about this.

Glass astragolos from the Eretz Israel Museum in Tel Aviv that is like the one found by the Sifting Project.