21/12/2016
Finds, Holidays, Research, Visitors Finds, Name That Find 4 Comments
As a part of our Crowdfunding Campaign / Pre-Channukkah Fun / We had a staff meeting and everyone was in the office at the same time so I could take videos of them, we are playing a new game.
Can you identify this object? To me it looks like ancient PAC-MAN or maybe Jack Skellington from the Nightmare Before Christmas.
??????
13/12/2016
Finds, Visitors Bracelet, Finds, gold, Lost, Modern, temple mount 2 Comments
We don’t usually do this because our artifacts belong to the State of Israel, but we are turning to Social Media to find the owner of this gold bracelet. It was lost on the Temple Mount at some point before 1999 and found in our sifting. Based on the name and style, it is modern and the owner may still be out there! Share this picture and this post so that we can find the owner. (We covered the name on it so that the owner can prove that it is theirs.)
Details: 10K gold. A girl’s name written in English letters. It is very small and may have belonged to a child. It was lost on the Temple Mount before 1999.
The bracelet is worth about $100. Maybe we will find the owner and then they’ll support our research in thanks!
(The shekel is to show scale.)
04/12/2016
general, Visitors Biblical Archaeology Review, Frankie Snyder, herod, opus sectile, quilt, second temple 2 Comments
We love it when we inspire our supporters. We just got an email from Nancy in Washington who is a subscriber to the Biblical Archaeology Review. She said, “We have subscribed to BAR for many years! Imagine my surprise when my husband handed me the latest issue turned to page 58 and said “I have an idea for a quilt for you.” He was reading the article about the Temple Mount Floor tiles. There were three patterns used over and over again. I incorporated the 3 squares plus Herod’s Triangles around the edge. I made it to scale and used the colors found in the floor rubble from the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.”
Nancy and her beautiful quilt
We are amazed at the detail and beautiful work that went into this quilt. As Frankie put it, Nancy “did an an amazing job of capturing the essence of Herod’s beautiful opus sectile floors.”
What is really interesting is how similar the quilt is to the floor created for the Israel Museum’s exhibit, “Herod the Great: The King’s Final Journey” that was on display in 2013. The museum display was created from tiles that were found at Herodium, where Herod was buried, and from Cypros, a small Herodian palace on the ridge-line above Jericho. Plaster replica tiles were then used to fill in the blank spaces.
Though the museum floor was not created from Temple Mount patterns or pieces, Nancy’s quilt is amazingly similar to the museum display! This shows how Herod used similar patterns and materials at these locations. This is how Frankie was able to use what she learned from Herodian, Banias, Cypros, Jericho, Masada and other patterns from the Roman world to reconstruct the patterns of the Temple Mount based on the pieces that were found in the sifting.
We are truly touched when we inspire our supporters. Please let us know if we’ve inspired you! Send us pictures and stories! Also, a special thanks goes out to Nancy for sharing her quilt with us. It is truly a work of art.
The Temple Mount Sifting Project 