A very powerful discovery which highlights the most unbreakable bond

On the eve of Hanukkah in the year 5774 (2013), many generations after the drama which yielded the Festival of Lights unfolded some 2,150 years ago, Dr. Eilat Mazar, an accomplished archaeologist, is recreating her earth-shattering rediscovery of the "lost menorah" at the foot of the Temple Mount. This discovery took place seven months ago but was only revealed in September.

Nadav Shragai..
Israel Hayom..
29 November '13..

When the Hasmoneans returned to the Temple only to discover that the golden menorah was stolen by the Greeks, they quickly put together a makeshift candelabrum with seven lamps using scraps of iron. They lit the menorah using pure oil, according to the story as it is written in the Book of Maccabees.

On the eve of Hanukkah in the year 5774 (2013), many generations after the drama which yielded the Festival of Lights unfolded some 2,150 years ago, Dr. Eilat Mazar, an accomplished archaeologist, is recreating her earth-shattering rediscovery of the "lost menorah" at the foot of the Temple Mount. This discovery took place seven months ago but was only revealed in September.

For many years, Mazar has excavated the hidden corners of this land. The ground she dug held thousands of discoveries and archaeological treasures. Still, nothing could have prepared Mazar, the granddaughter of Professor Benjamin Mazar, who is thought of as the pioneer in excavations of artifacts from the biblical era, for the 1,400-year-old discovery, not to mention the reverberating responses, from the prime minister himself to colleagues from abroad to "regular folks," among them Jews and Arabs.

These unforgettable moments are seared into her consciousness. It was the start of the fourth excavation season at the City of David, also known as the Ophel, on the southern rim of the Temple Mount complex. The project is overseen by the Hebrew University.

The area itself was first excavated by her grandfather 40 years ago. During that initial period, the diggers, including students from Ambassador College in Oklahoma, devoted their efforts to removing the uppermost layer of earth from the area designated for excavation. They "uncovered" dozens of plastic cups, aluminum foil, and worn-out old shoes that appear to have been used by construction workers during their lunch breaks. At that stage of the dig, they didn't expect to come across anything special.

Mazar was thus surprised when on the fifth day of her own dig, this past summer, Ariel Winderbaum, the archaeologist in charge of Area C, showed her a large golden earring that was particularly dense. It was uncovered in one of the rooms attached to the structure that hosted the shops in the Byzantine area. From here, things began to unfold quickly. Before Mazar managed to absorb the significance of what had been found, another earring was found nearby. It matched the first earring.

A few minutes later, several golden coins were also found. And minutes afterward more artifacts were uncovered. Mazar was concerned that the news of the golden findings would attracted unwanted guests to the complex. She asked Winderbaum to make sure that the workers who uncovered the 36 coins and earrings -- Cari and Ahinoam -- continue with their work while maintaining strict confidentiality. Mazar herself was quick to leave the vicinity so as not to arouse attention.

Now Mazar is releasing a Hebrew-language book entitled "Discovering the Lost Menorah at the Foot of the Temple Mount." In it, she describes the moments that fired the imagination of archaeologists and millions of Jews from around the world. It also provided yet another rejoinder to the deceitful claims propagated for years by the Palestinians whereby Jewish links to Jerusalem and the existence of the temple are a fallacy.

"I asked Ariel to photograph the findings," Mazar writes in her book. "Perhaps we will be able to say more about the coins after we examine the photographs, but Ariel came to me and said, 'Eilat, you have to come and see something up close.'"

"I thought to myself, 'This must be just more coins.' I told him I'd be right there, but he insisted more forcefully. 'Eilat, you have to come now.' So I went to take a look. Cari was digging right up against the room's western wall. It wasn't the same collection of coins. She carefully cleared out the margins of a shallow indentation in the base of the limestone floor and inside there was a shiny, round gold medallion. On the medallion we noticed a partial image of something that we couldn't make out, but now we could clearly discern that it was the image of the seven-lamp menorah."

Jerusalem Dig Strikes Rare Gold

...That means the perpetrators of the campaign are rigorously blind to the beauty of the Jewish people’s reencounter with its roots, digging deep in long-abandoned ground and finding… itself. Peace will come when Islam as a whole can acknowledge other loci of light, all having the same source even if filtered through different prisms.

P. David Hornik..
pjmedia.com..
22 September '13..

This year Israel received a wonderful New Year’s (Rosh Hashanah) gift from a team of archeologists led by Eilat Mazar.

She announced that, at the foot of the Temple Mount, the team had found a large gold medallion, “remarkably well kept and glittering,” with reliefs of a seven-branched menorah, a shofar, and a Torah—timeless fundaments of Judaism well familiar in Israel and much of the Jewish world today.

The medallion was in a fabric bag; along with it was another fabric bag containing 36 gold coins and other artifacts.

Mazar assessed that the medallion and coins were abandoned in 614 CE, the year of the Persian conquest of Jerusalem. She added:

The position of the items…indicates that one bundle was carefully hidden underground, while the second bundle was apparently abandoned in haste and scattered across the floor….

[T]he most likely explanation is that the findings were earmarked as a contribution toward the building of a new synagogue at a location that is near the Temple Mount….

What is certain is that their mission, whatever it was, was unsuccessful, and its owners couldn’t return to collect it.

Mazar believes the medallion was an ornament for a Torah scroll, which would make it “the earliest such archeological find in history.” As for the coins, an Israeli expert said they “can be dated to the reigns of different Byzantine emperors, ranging from the middle of the 4th century CE to the early 7th century CE.”

Also this year Mazar’s team discovered the oldest known inscription in Jerusalem—from around 1000 BCE at the time of King David, a period of Jewish sovereignty in Israel. The medallion, however, comes from almost half a millennium after the loss of Jewish sovereignty and attests to the ongoing attachment to Jerusalem and the Temple Mount.

An attachment that continued up to the astounding restoration of Israel in our era.

A Menorah, a shofar, a Torah scroll...the essence of our people, no description could be more concise.

"This is a remarkable discovery you come across only once in a lifetime," Mazar said on Monday. "You don't get to see the menorah on the footsteps of the Temple Mount every day; such a medallion was never discovered.

Photo credit: Lior Mizrahi

Yori Yalon/Shlomo Cesana..
Israel Hayom..
10 September '13..

A breath-taking discovery just off the Temple Mount: a medallion featuring reliefs of the menorah (the historic seven-branched candelabrum used inside the temple), a shofar (a ram's horn used during Rosh Hashana) and a Torah scroll was unearthed recently along with a trove of gold and silver artifacts.

The unusual find -- apparently dating to the Byzantine era in the 7th century C.E. -- was unearthed by a team excavating the area below the southern wall of the holy basin (an area that is believed to be the biblical Ophel). Dr. Eilat Mazar, an archeologist from the Hebrew University, has been in charge of the operation.

The cache was found hidden inside two fabric bags underneath a limestone floor in a Byzantine-era structure. One bag contained dozens of gold coins and artifacts used for trade. The excavators believe the medallion, found in the second bag, was used to adorn torah scrolls, which, if proven accurate, would make it the oldest such ornament ever discovered.

The latest phase of the Ophel excavations ran from April through July. This project is run jointly with the Israel Antiquities Authority, which has been tasked with preserving the area, the Israel Nature and Parks Authority and East Jerusalem Development Ltd. The area is part of the national park that surrounds Jerusalem's Old City.

"This is a remarkable discovery you come across only once in a lifetime," Mazar said on Monday. "You don't get to see the menorah on the footsteps of the Temple Mount every day; such a medallion was never discovered. The fact that a Torah scroll is featured alongside the seven-branch candelabrum is just as amazing. This probably means that the medallion was used to adorn a Torah scroll in a synagogue."

RE: Jerusalem Dig Yields Yet Another Historical Gem

Emanuelle Ottolenghi
Contentions/Commentary
12 July '10

Reporting on yet another remarkable archaeological finding in Jerusalem, Jonathan Tobin writes today that:

This matters because many influential archaeologists, as well as Palestinian propagandists, have dismissed Jewish ties to Jerusalem by claiming that the Kingdom of David mentioned in the Bible was an insignificant entity and that its capital in Jerusalem was nothing more than a village.

I could not agree more. But his sentence triggered a thought and a reminder of post-Zionist mirror-climbing about when the Palestinian nation was born. The exercise is, of course, aimed at disproving the argument that Palestinian national identity is largely a consequence, a response, and, therefore, a by-product of Zionism and Israel’s establishment. The argument suggests that part of the reason why Palestine never came to exist as a nation-state is because those for whom the nation-state was meant to be established did not see themselves as a distinct nation until much later in history – when it was too late.

Even if one takes the absurd claim that the birth date of Palestinian identity goes back to 1834 – as argued Joel Migdal and Baruch Kimmerling in their book, The Palestinian People: A History – the notion that “Jerusalem was nothing more than a village” would more aptly apply to Jerusalem at the time of the Palestinian nation’s “birth.”

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Jerusalem Dig Yields Another Historical Gem

Jonathan Tobin
Contentions/Commentary
12 July '10

Does it matter whether Jerusalem was a major city 3,500 years ago? Surely, nothing that happened that long ago could mean much today, especially since the Israelite Kingdom of David and Solomon — from which Jewish claims date — did not come along until a few centuries later. But the recent find of a clay fragment at the site of the City of David from this long ago actually has a great deal of meaning for the debate over both the Davidic kingdom’s significance and the depth of Jewish ties to the holy city.

The fragment, found in the Ophel area, in a dig carried out by Dr. Eilat Mazar of the Hebrew University Institute of Archeology and funded by New York philanthropists Daniel Mintz and Meredith Berkman, is a small piece of what appears to have been a larger tablet. What makes it important is that it contains writing in ancient cuneiform symbols. This makes it the oldest written document ever found in Jerusalem. That alone is fascinating but what makes it truly significant is the high quality of the writing that seems to be the work of a highly skilled scribe who was probably part of a royal household. Analysis of the writing by Hebrew University experts shows that it may well have been part of a message sent from a king of Jerusalem to the pharaoh in Egypt.

This matters because many influential archaeologists, as well as Palestinian propagandists, have dismissed Jewish ties to Jerusalem by claiming that the Kingdom of David mentioned in the Bible was an insignificant entity and that its capital in Jerusalem was nothing more than a village. These people scoff at the notion that the effort to restore Jewish sovereignty to the area is based on historical precedent rather than biblical romance.

The lesson of this most recent find is that if Jerusalem were already an important walled city in the centuries before David, it is very difficult to argue that it was a backwater only when the Jews took over, some 3,000 years ago. Since anti-Zionists wish to claim that King David and his kingdom never really existed and that the great city from which he ruled it is a myth, this evidence of the city’s significance even before his time is more proof of the falsity of anti-Israel historical polemics.

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Oldest written document ever found in J'lem

Archeologists unearth 14th century BCE fragment.


Ben Hartman
JPost
12 July '10

Hebrew University excavations recently unearthed a clay fragment dating back to the 14th century BCE, said to be the oldest written document ever found in Jerusalem.

The tiny fragment is only 2 cm. by 2.8 cm. in surface area and 1 cm. thick and appears to have once been part of a larger tablet. Researchers say the ancient fragment testifies to Jerusalem’s importance as a major city late in the Bronze Age, long before it was conquered by King David.

The minuscule fragment contains Akkadian words written in ancient cuneiform symbols. Researchers say that while the symbols appear to be insignificant, containing simply the words “you,” “you were,” “them,” “to do,” and “later,” the high quality of the writing indicates that it was written by a highly skilled scribe. Such a revelation would mean that the piece was likely written for tablets that were part of a royal household.

The find was uncovered in a fill taken from the Ophel area, which lies between the Old City’s southern wall and the City of David. The Ophel digs are being carried out by Dr. Eilat Mazar of the Hebrew University Institute of Archeology, through funding from US donors Daniel Mintz and Meredith Berkman of New York.

According to Mazar, the fragment was discovered over a month and a half ago during wet sifting of the Ophel excavations, but was only released to the press this week because researchers wanted to wait until analysis of the piece was complete so as to be absolutely certain of the details of the find.

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First Person: Archaeological Politics—Why Is Israel Different?

Hershel Shanks
BAR
July/August '10

Not long ago, a news report landed on my desk describing an Egyptian archaeological project. The Egyptians were going to excavate the 1.7-mile avenue of the sphinxes that, almost 3,500 years ago, linked the grand temples of Luxor and Karnak. More than 1,350 sphinxes lined this glorious, but now buried, path.

There was only one problem with the project: 2,000 people now lived on the buried path. They would have to be dispossessed and relocated. The Egyptians allocated half of the project budget of 60 million Egyptian pounds to compensate these families who will be moved.

Another Egyptian archaeological project would require the demolition of the entire village of Gurna, located near the Valley of the Kings. The village was sitting over ancient tombs. Nearly 3,200 homes would have to be demolished. The government built new homes for the villagers about 2 miles away. Some villagers complained that the new houses weren’t big enough, but that was it. The mention of the dispossessed Egyptian settlers was only an incidental part of the article, which was really about the planned projects.

All nations, including the United States, take pride in their history. We, too, want to explore our past, even when it’s not something to be proud of, like our country’s history of slavery.

If we discovered a house in private hands where Lincoln had lived for a short time, you may be sure that the government would acquire it by purchase or eminent domain and make it into a national monument and tourist attraction. If it were taken by eminent domain (that is, by government edict), our constitution provides that the owner must be paid “just compensation.”

This is what happens in the United States, and this is what appears to be happening in Egypt—and all over the world.

In every country except one.

The City of David is a small hillock of 10 or 12 acres south of the walled Old City of Jerusalem. It was here that the city was confined from the Early Bronze Age (more than 4,000 years ago) until about 700 B.C. Then the city expanded to adjacent areas, but the City of David, as it is known, remained a critical part of the city.

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Whose Jerusalem? Latest Discovery Makes Plain Ancient Jewish Ties

Jonathan Tobin
Contentions/Commentary
22 February '10

The greatest threat to the hopes of those who think parts of Jerusalem should be off-limits to Jews comes not when Jewish-owned buildings go up in the city, but rather when Jews start digging into the ground of East Jerusalem. Because the more the history of the city is uncovered, the less credible becomes the charge that Jews are alien colonists in what the media sometimes wrongly refer to as “traditionally Palestinian” or “Arab” Jerusalem.

That’s the upshot from the release of an amazing archeological dig conducted just outside Jerusalem’s Old City. The excavations conducted by archeologist Eilat Mazar in the Ophel area revealed a section of an ancient city wall of Jerusalem. According to the press release from the Hebrew University, under whose auspices the project was carried out, the dig uncovered the wall as well as an inner gatehouse for entry into the royal quarter of the ancient city and an additional royal structure adjacent to the gatehouse as well as a corner tower. While ancient buildings are not uncommon in the city, the significance of this discovery is the fact that these edifices can be dated to the 10th century before the Common Era — the time of King Solomon, credited by the Bible for the construction of the ancient Temple in Jerusalem. Pottery found at the lowest levels of the dig is dated to this era.

Even more telling is the fact that bullae — seal impressions — with Hebrew names were found, as well as seal impressions on jar handles inscribed with the words “to the king,” which means they were employed by the Israelite state in that time. Inscriptions on the jars, which Mazar says are the largest ever found in Jerusalem, showed them to be the property of a royal official.

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Related: Hebrew U. archaeologist discovers Jerusalem city wall possibly built by King Solomon
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Hebrew U. archaeologist discovers Jerusalem city wall possibly built by King Solomon

The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
News release
IMRA
22 February '10

Jerusalem, February 22, 2010 - A section of an ancient city wall of Jerusalem from the tenth century B.C.E. - possibly built by King Solomon -- has been revealed in archaeological excavations directed by Dr. Eilat Mazar and conducted under the auspices of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

The section of the city wall revealed, 70 meters long and six meters high, is located in the area known as the Ophel, between the City of David and the southern wall of the Temple Mount.

Uncovered in the city wall complex are: an inner gatehouse for access into the royal quarter of the city, a royal structure adjacent to the gatehouse, and a corner tower that overlooks a substantial section of the adjacent Kidron valley.



The excavations in the Ophel area were carried out over a three-month period with funding provided by Daniel Mintz and Meredith Berkman, a New York couple interested in Biblical Archeology. The funding supports both completion of the archaeological excavations and processing and analysis of the finds as well as conservation work and preparation of the site for viewing by the public within the Ophel Archaeological Park and the national park around the walls of Jerusalem.

The excavations were carried out in cooperation with the Israel Antiquities Authority, the Israel Nature and Parks Authority, and the Company for the Development of East Jerusalem. Archaeology students from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem as well as volunteer students from the Herbert W. Armstrong College in Edmond, Oklahoma, and hired workers all participated in the excavation work.

"The city wall that has been uncovered testifies to a ruling presence. Its strength and form of construction indicate a high level of engineering", Mazar said. The city wall is at the eastern end of the Ophel area in a high, strategic location atop the western slop of the Kidron valley.

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