“Matchmaker Matchmaker make me a match! Find me a find! Catch me a catch!”
Well we’ve definitely got finds, but starting today, we’ve also got matching!
Starting Today,thanks to a very generous donor, every donation made on www.half-shekel.org will be DOUBLED until we raise $20,000.
2000 years ago, you would have given a half-shekel coin as tribute to the Temple.
You could only give HALF of what was needed and your neighbor’s contribution would COMPLETE the donation.
We are officially in the three weeks of Jewish mourning that culminates in the fast day on the 9th of Av to commemorate the destruction of the Temple and many other terrible events in Jewish history. It is a common practice to learn about the Temple construction and laws during this time. We will do our part by providing videos and information from our research about these topics.
Do your part by helping us complete our research on First and Second Temple Period architectural fragments and other artifacts.
End of the Giveback Campaign : Continuation at Half-shekel.org
We can’t believe that this campaign is already over. We are so grateful to each and every one of you who showed your support for our project and became a backer of this campaign. You have showed the Israeli government and the world that this project needs to continue and has the support of the local community and the world.
We have raised NIS 300,782 from 1117 backers which is 120% of our original goal. We are now able to keep our lab open until the end of the year, and we are now able to expand some of our research topics. We are on course to reach our publication deadline in 2019 and if we can continue to receive the support that we need, we will be able to resume the sifting of the Temple Mount earth.
You are the reason that we do what we do. Archaeological research means nothing if it is not shared. Your messages, emails, volunteering, and your donations help strengthen our resolve and shows us that we are doing the right thing. We could not do what we do without you, and we want to let you know that you are now, and forever will be, part of our TMSP family.
Gifts
We had an overwhelming response to this campaign. That being said, we hope to send out all gifts within two months.
If you are attending one of our gift tours, we will send out information about where to meet and when by email as soon as possible. All tours are in Hebrew only. The tour with Zachi Dvira on the Temple Mount will take place on June 8th. The tour with Eli Shukrun at Ir David will take place on June 15th. The tour with Gaby Barkay on the Temple Mount will take place on June 18th. There are still places available to join the tour on the 15th and the 18th of June. Please contact development@tmsifting.org if you know someone interested in attending. We are also happy to organize tours in English for groups of 10+.
If you will receive an invitation to visit us at our research lab, or to have a lecture in your community, we will be in touch to set up a time to do so. If you have any questions or special requests, please feel free to be in touch with development@tmsifting.org.
Continuing
We will be continuing to work toward our publication goal by continuing this campaign in English and Hebrew as well as many other languages at www.half-shekel.org. There are options to give in shekel and dollars as well as tax-deductible donations from the US and the UK. Please pass on this information to your friends and family.
If you would like to continue to receive updates about our project as well as hear about current research and finds, please sign up for our quarterly English newsletter. Also, like our English or Hebrew page (or both!) on facebook and follow our blog or follow us on Twitter @TMSifting.
Thank You
Again, thank you so much for your support. There are no words to express our deepest gratitude. Thank you.
~Dr. Gabriel Barkay, Zachi Dvira, and the staff of the Temple Mount Sifting Project
Machine gun magazines, bullets, Jordanian coins, and uniform badges were found in sifting the soil from the Temple Mount. The artifacts tell the story of the unification of Jerusalem during the Six-Day War.
Broadcasted on the army radio network, nothing is more symbolic of the unification of Jerusalem during the Six-Day War than the immortal words of Colonel Mordechai “Motta” Gur, commander of the Paratroopers Brigade, as they conquered the Old City, “The Temple Mount is in our hands.”
We at the Temple Mount Sifting Project have this revelation daily as we work with soil and artifacts from the Temple Mount found by our project. The Temple Mount is literally in our hands.
As you know, our project is special in part because of the wide range of history it can help explain. Just as we have tangible artifacts from the Temple Mount’s ancient history, from the time of the First Temple’s destruction by the Babylonians, the Hasmonean wars, the Great Jewish Revolt which led to the destruction of the Second Temple, and the Crusader-Muslim battles, we have direct evidence of the Jordanian presence on the Temple Mount, and for the Six-Day War battles 50 years ago.
Yesterday, on Jerusalem Day celebrating the 50th anniversary of the reunification of Jerusalem, we had a booth in the Old City and displayed some of our special artifacts including our Opus Sectile floors, arrowheads, and artifacts from the Six-Day War. We had hundreds of people stop and learn about these artifacts as well as donate to our campaign to raise the funding necessary to continue our research. If you would like to support our research, please visit www.half-shekel.org or contact development@tmsifting.org for more information.
Among the artifacts that we have recovered from the Temple Mount are tens of items which may be related to the IDF’s arrival at the Temple Mount during the Six-Day War. Although these are not ancient archaeological artifacts, they have great historic significance and they can teach us about our recent history. It is usually thought that no battle occurred on the Temple Mount during the Six-Day War. The ammunition that we have found caused us to raised doubts regarding this premise and “dig” deeper into the details of the battle of Jerusalem during that time.
The IDF forces entered the Old City and the Temple Mount through the Lion’s Gate on Wednesday, June 7th 1967. The Jordanian forces had fled the city early in the morning, but some resistance pockets and sniper positions remained on the Temple Mount and the Old City. The previous day, the Jordanian military was positioned on the Eastern city wall, of which the Temple Mount’s Eastern wall is a significant part. On the night of June 6th, a special commando unit and some tanks were ordered to capture the Mount of Olives. They mistakenly lost their way, and instead of reaching the road towards the Augusta Victoria building, they reached the Kidron Bridge to the Gethsemane Church. The bridge’s location left them completely open to massive fire from the Jordanian positions on the wall above, killing 5 soldiers. During the rescue attempts, the IDF soldiers on the bridge fired back at the Jordanian positions. The story of this engagement is described well by Moshe Natan in his book, “The War for Jerusalem.”
In order to better understand our artifacts, we spoke with Rabbi Yoel Bin-Nun who was a part of the paratroopers force that entered the city through the Lion’s Gate. He said, “Following the Kidron Bridge battle, the commander of the Jordanian battalion in the Old City asked permission to evacuate the Old City since he realized that the IDF was encircling it. The Egyptian General of the Eastern front did not understand the symbolic significance of the Old City and the Holy Sites [for Jordan] and allowed the retreat. The Jordanians fled the city [on June 7th] early in the morning. The IDF did not know that, and at 7am bombarded the city walls with artillery fire in order to make the Jordanian soldiers withdraw from the walls. One artillery shell that missed the target killed three of our soldiers […] From the minaret near the Gate of the Tribes, a Jordanian soldier shot at us, but we managed to take him down before he could hit one of our men. As we entered the gate into the Temple Mount, paratroopers shot bursts of fire into the air to intimidate [the Jordanians], but Motta Gur (the commander of the brigade) immediately gave his famous order, “Cease Fire! All forces cease fire! A holy place, do not shoot. The Temple Mount is in our hands.””
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We also recovered a 25 round magazine of an Israeli made Uzi sub-machine gun, which served as the personal weapon of every IDF commander. There are also several 9 mm bullets – the Uzi’s ammunition. A number of 9 mm bullet casings were found as well. One casing, which was produced abroad, has a manufacture date of 1956. Another 9 mm casing was manufactured in 1952 and has the Hebrew letters “MIT,” which is an acronym for the State of Israel, Military Industry. These bullets and casings attest to the fact that during the Six-Day War antiquated ammunition was used. In addition, a 7.62 mm blank cartridge with a headstamp date of 1957 was found. This round was probably used for firing an anti-tank grenade from a Belgian made Fal or “FN” rifle which was commonly in service of the IDF during this period. Among the ammunition that was found were two 50-caliber projectiles probably fired from a Browning heavy machine gun. The bullet tips are warped indicating that they hit a hard surface. It is likely that these bullets originated in the return fire of the IDF soldiers pinned down on the Kidron Bridge shooting at the Jordanians positioned on the Eastern wall of the Temple Mount.
Yaakov Goldfine, a soldier who was a sniper in the Jerusalem Brigade and entered the city from the Dung Gate, gave us a further explanation about the weapons used during the war. “We were using an English Enfield rifle which we upgraded to be used as a sniper rifle. For backup, we had the Belgian FN which was used by the infantry soldiers. […] I entered the gate and ascended the Temple Mount. It was easy to see how the Jordanians used the Temple Mount as a military fortification. In spite of that, our orders were not to shoot at the Old City with heavy weaponry or bomb it from the air. The neutralization of the Jordanian positions was done by the infantry forces, and it cost us losses.”
Among the coins discovered by the Temple Mount Sifting Project are four corrugated aluminum Agora coins. These are Israeli coins minted in 1967 and 1968 and which must have fallen out of the pockets of IDF soldiers or the first Israeli visitors who arrived at the Temple Mount following the Six-Day War.
Furthermore, the sifting yielded nearly forty Jordanian Hashemite Kingdom coins. Almost all the coins were minted prior to the Six-Day War, when the area was under Jordanian control from 1948-1967.
Though Israel is celebrating the 50th anniversary of the unification of Jerusalem, and Gur’s famous statement is being remembered and widely shared, the Temple Mount itself has a more complex reality. The first Jordanian coin from the sifting was discovered on June 6, 2005, the 38th anniversary of Jerusalem’s unification. This coin was minted in 1991, and probably arrived at the Temple Mount in the pocket of a Muslim worshipper or a Waqf employee who worked on the Temple Mount. The Jordanian Dinar (and its denomination –piasters) has remained a legal currency in the West Bank, continuing from 1967 until today.
Two small metal badges depicting a Jordanian flag were also discovered in the sifting and may have been pinned to Jordanian army uniforms. The post-war Jordanian artifacts reflect the complex political situation on the Temple Mount. Officially, the State of Israel holds sovereignty over the area, but the state has de facto given some authority to the Jordanian Kingdom via the Islamic Waqf.
It is amazing how our artifacts really express these complex situations and these moments in time. It is research like this that makes me truly love archaeology and the different ways that it can be used to understand our past. This research falls into a somewhat new category of archaeology known as “Modern Conflict Archaeology” which takes an interdisciplinary approach to try and understand the artifacts created during modern conflict. (Definitely check out the above website, because it is a truly fascinating new approach to archaeology.)
To support more research like this, go to www.half-shekel.org or contact development@tmsifting.org for more information.
We at the Temple Mount Sifting Project have this revelation daily as we work with soil and artifacts from the Temple Mount found by our project. The Temple Mount is literally in our hands.
The Temple Mount Sifting Project 