FIRST TEMPLE ARTIFACTS UNCOVERED

Temple Mount Dirt Uncovers First Temple Artifacts - Nadav Shragai
The project of sifting layers of dirt from the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, removed in 1999 by the Islamic Religious Trust (Waqf) from the Solomon's Stables area, has yielded artifacts dating back to the First Temple period. Most of the finds predate the Middle Ages. They include 10,000-year-old flint tools; numerous potsherds; 1,000 ancient coins; lots of jewelry (pendants, rings, bracelets, earrings, and beads in a variety of colors and materials); clothing accessories and decorative pieces; talismans; dice and game pieces made of bone and ivory; ivory and mother of pearl inlay for furniture; figurines and statuettes; stone and metal weights; arrowheads and rifle bullets; stone and glass shards; remains of stone mosaic and glass wall mosaics; decorated tiles and parts of structures; stamps, seals and a host of other items.

One striking find is a First Temple period seal impression containing ancient Hebrew writing, which may have belonged to a well-known family of priests mentioned in the Book of Jeremiah. Another is a broken stone from a decorated part of the Temple Mount - still bearing signs of fire, which archaeologist Dr. Gabriel Barkai says are from the Temple's destruction in 70 CE. ( Ha'aretz)