The Temple Mount’s treasure trove

The project to excavate the foundations of the Western Wall – the hewn blocks of stone at the foundation of the sacred site – never stops revealing archaeological surprises.

By Nadav Shragai, ISRAEL HAYOM

The bulla with the inscription “asher al habayit” | Photo: City of David/Eliyahu Yanai

A small clay bulla, or seal, that was used to sign official letters in the days of the kingdom of Judea waited nearly 2,600 years amid the rubble at the foundations of the Western Wall to be discovered by Israeli archaeologists. For eight years, the rubble has been cleared away, one bucket after another, and taken directly to the site of the Temple Mount Sifting Project operated by the Ir David Foundation and the Israel Nature and Parks Authority.

Comparatively large finds, such as a chisel used to carve the stones of the Western Wall, turn up immediately. Small discoveries usually come to light only after some time has passed. The dirt that contained the royal seal had been waiting six years to be sifted. A few weeks ago, project volunteer Batya Ofan, dumped it onto a large sieve, washed it down, and uncovered a royal seal from the seventh century BCE bearing the name “Adoniyahu asher al habayit” (translation: Adoniyahu, who is over [oversees] the house) in early Hebrew script.

The Bible uses the epithet “asher al habayit” for only eight people. It was a title reserved for the most senior administrator of a kingdom – in this case, the kingdom of Judea. However, the name Adoniyahu does not appear among those eight. Three different biblical figures – King David’s son, a Levite from the days of Jehoshaphat, and a tribal leader from the time of the Prophet Nehemiah – bear the name, but none of them lived in the seventh century BCE. The seal, therefore, introduced archaeologists to a fourth Adoniyahu, who was hitherto unknown.

Archaeologist Dr. Eli Shukron, who once directed the project to excavate the foundations of the Western Wall and oversaw many of the discoveries made there, suggests a possible connection between the seal that belonged to the fourth Adoniyahu “asher al habayit” and another inscription from the same century that was discovered in a burial cave dating back to the First Temple era 150 years ago.

The inscription was found in a cave on the eastern slope of Nahal Kidron by French archaeologist Charles Simon Clermont-Ganneau, but was only interpreted 80 years later, by Professor Nachman Avigad, who read it as “tomb of … yahu asher al habayit.”

The fact that the seal and the inscription both date back seven centuries BCE, as well as the fact that they both bear the epithet “asher al habayit,” causes Shukron to wonder whether they refer to the same Adoniyahu, whose identity has yet to be solved.

The five kings who ruled Judea in the seventh century BCE were Manasseh, Amon, Josiah, Jehoahaz, and Jehoiakim. Shukron notes that one of them “was apparently served by a top minister [known as] ‘Adoniyahu asher al habayit.'”

At any rate, Shukron says, the royal seal that bears his name “presents us with an exciting opportunity to probe the administration of the kingdom of Judea in its first period, after Hezekiah but before the destruction [of the Temple].”

The project to excavate the foundations of the Western Wall – imposing hewn blocks of stone that sit on the lowest point of the boulder that forms the foundation of the Temple Mount – never stops revealing archaeological surprises. The foundations of the Wall were hidden underground even in the Second Temple era, much like modern-day foundations of homes. This is why these stones are darker than the visible stones of the Western Wall.

In recent years, the project’s archaeologists have excavated some 60 meters (200 feet) of the wall’s foundations, but their discoveries go far beyond that. The site is a seemingly endless treasure trove. The first and most important discovery led to a revised date for when the wall was constructed.

Shukron and his colleague Professor Ronny Reich determined that in contrast to popular belief, the Western Wall was not built by King Herod but by Agrippas I, Herod’s grandson. The two researchers reached their groundbreaking conclusion after unearthing 17 coins minted during the time of Roman Prefect Valerius Gratus, who ruled Judea from 15-26 CE. The coins were discovered in earth that the builders of the Western Wall used to fill in the mikvehs on top of which part of the wall was constructed.

Later, the bottom-most layers of the Western Wall were found to contain white mortar, a surprising discovery, given the prevailing archaeological belief that the wall had been built by a dry method, in which stones were placed on top of each other without anything to stick them together.

Since then, one discovery has followed another: a 15-centimeter (5.9-inch) chisel unearthed in a mound of quarry rubble at the foot of the wall that could have been dropped by one of the laborers who was working on scaffolding and never bothered to pick it up; and a scale from the First Temple era that was used to weigh the donations contributed by the people for the upkeep of the Temple.

The half-shekel weights the scale used, inscribed with the word “beka,” are first mentioned in Exodus 38:26: “One beka per person, that is, half a shekel, according to the sanctuary shekel, from everyone who had crossed over to those counted.”

Another wonderful discovery is a seal inscribed in Aramaic “daka leYah” (“pure for God”). It, too, was discovered in the sifting project. Like the “Adoniyahu” seal, it is a small piece of clay whose inscription appears in Jewish texts a few other times.

The best-known reference to the Aramaic inscription appears in the Talmud’s Tractate Shabbat (21b), which describes the Hanukkah miracle of the oil lamp found in the Temple after the Hasmoneans’ victory over the Greeks. That lamp had been stamped by the High Priest, an indication it had been sanctified for use in the Temple.

As if that weren’t enough, a shard of stone on which the Temple menorah had been carved was found not far away. Although the Temple menorah had seven branches, the menorah carved on the stone, which might have been hastily carved graffiti, shows only five.

However, both Reich and Shukron note that the depiction of the base of the Temple menorah is very important, as it portrays what the original menorah looked like – it also matched a carving of the Temple menorah that was discovered in the Herodian quarter of the Old City, underneath the Jewish Quarter, and both carvings differ from the depiction of the menorah on Arch of Titus in Rome.

A passerby of the time might have seen the Temple menorah and wondered at its beauty, scratched it onto a stone, and then dropped it at the roadside, not imagining it would be marveled at two and a half millennia later.