Sifting the rubble

This morning our group went to a national park to sift rubble that was excavated from the Temple Mount. Basically what happened was that the Moslem caretakers of the Mount illegally excavated part of an area known as Solomon's stables and dumped the rubble in various places inside and outside Jerusalem. However, the Temple Mount contains valuable archaeological artifacts from the first and second (Jewish) temples and then Roman, Christian, and Moslem occupations since then.


So eventually some archaeologists got organized and loaded the rubble on trucks again and took them to a national park. With private sponsorship, they've erected a tent and recruit volunteers to sift the piles of rock and dirt. We washed the rubble on wire sieves and then proceeded to search through it for artifacts. Our group found three ancient coins, an arrowhead, both modern and ancient nails, both modern and Roman glass, ancient mosasic pieces, and many pieces of broken pottery from a range of different periods. The photo shows my roommate, Larry, looking for treasures amongst the small rocks on his sieving tray.


It was a very interesting morning and we all learnt a lot both from the lectures, and also from the actual work and rough dating. After we thought we have finished checking each tray, it was checked again quickly by a more trained person. Then at least two qualified archaeologists will properly date our finds in a future session. The photo shows their display of some of the items previously found-- only small but valuable to archaeologists who have never been allowed to properly dig at the Temple Mount.