Jerusalem Day and the Six-Day War

 “The Temple Mount is in our Hands!”

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.

Some major news media covered the following artifacts in articles published yesterday. Here is a great one from The Times of Israel. It was also covered by The Jewish Press and on many Hebrew news sites.

Six-Day War – an Incredible Story

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 7^th 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 6^th, 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 7^th] 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 50^th 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 38^th 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.

Sneak Peak: Christianity on the Temple Mount

ch Hey Everyone,

We here at the Sifting Project find artifacts from across the rich history of the Temple Mount. We truly are doing our best to research and preserve the history and heritage of everyone associated with the Temple Mount, from Jews to Pagans to Christians and Muslims and all those in between. I know we have recently written a lot about the Jewish connection to the Temple Mount, so today, we are going to focus on another important group with a major connection to the Temple Mount: Christians.

St. Joseph’s Day

You may not know this, but March 19th (yesterday) is commonly recognized as St. Joseph’s Day! It is widely celebrated by many sects of Christianity across the world and has particular importance in parts of Italy, Malta, Spain, The Philippines, and in New Orleans. In Christianity, St. Joseph was the husband to Mary and the foster-father to Jesus. He is the patron saint of all manner of working people, and he himself was known as a carpenter. He is also the patron saint of pregnant women and unborn children, fathers, travelers, immigrants, and of the dying.

From the Temple Mount

One of the special finds we have uncovered from the Temple Mount is a bronze Catholic medal in Spanish from the 1800’s depicting St. Joseph. On one side, it depicts St. Joseph holding an infant Jesus in his right hand and a lily in his left. In Spanish it reads,  “S. Jose R.P.N.” (Rogad Por Nosotros) meaning St. Joseph pray for us. On the other side, it shows the Holy Spirit as a dove with rays descending to two hearts. In Spanish it reads, “Corazones de Jesu y Maria” meaning Hearts of Jesus and Mary. It also says “Roma” or Rome along the bottom edge. The suspension loop on ours is broken, and unfortunately I cannot show pictures to you all today because it has not been officially published. However, it is almost identical to this one (below) that our researcher discovered on eBay.

St. Joseph holds a special place in Christianity and many places and churches all over the world are named after St. Joseph, including the Spanish form, San Jose, which is the most commonly named place in the world. In popular religious iconography he is associated with lilies (as in our medal) or a spikenard (muskroot). He is typically portrayed as an older man, usually as a marginal figure next to Mary and Jesus. Some statues of Joseph show his staff topped with lily blossoms, and he is often accompanied by carpentry tools.

So from our office to yours, and all the workers out there, have a wonderful day!

Coming to New York!

Start spreading the news. We’re coming! We want to be a part of it, New York, New York!

Zachi Dvira will be going to New York on a speaking tour from April 20^th through April 30^th. He will be visiting various Jewish organizations in and around Manhattan, and may even be making his way to New Jersey for a day. He will be speaking about the counter evidence to the Temple Denial Movement, the archaeological evidence from the Sifting Project, and other research and artifacts from other excavations in Jerusalem that provide evidence of the First and Second Temple.

These lectures are a fun way to help you learn the facts so that you can counter the Temple Denial Movement. Zachi has been studying the history of the Temple Mount for over 18 years. As well as being one of the founders of the Sifting Project, he has also had access to some unpublished research in archives from the British Mandate Period that shed a lot of light on the history of the Temple Mount.

If you are interested in attending one of these lectures, let us know! Email development@tmsifting.org and we will send you the specific times and places so that you can choose the one that works best with your schedule.

We are also interested in perhaps doing a gala event; if not this trip, then perhaps the next. If you or your organization would like to host such an event, let us know so that we can start planning! It would be a great way to raise awareness about the project and the history of the Temple Mount as well as help us raise funds to publish our research.