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Wet-Sift the Megiddo Dumps!

Wet-Sifting Is Invaluable for Recovering Small Finds

By Hershel Shanks

I’m looking for a clever aphorism saying that good things sometimes come from something bad. I have in mind the Muslim Waqf’s illegal excavation on the Temple Mount to accommodate a new, larger entrance to the underground Marwani mosque. Truckloads of dirt were dug without regard to archaeological method and then unceremoniously dumped into the Kidron Valley. When archaeology student Zachi Dvira (Zweig) started rummaging around in the dump, the Israel Antiquities Authority had him arrested for digging without a permit. Zachi’s teacher, prominent Jerusalem archaeologist Gaby Barkay, obtained a permit, and the two of them initiated their famous […]

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Footnotes

1.

See Hershel Shanks, “Jerusalem Roundup: The Temple Mount Sifting Project,” BAR 37:02, and Hershel Shanks, “Sifting the Temple Mount Dump,” BAR 31:04.

2.

See Hershel Shanks, “Jerusalem Roundup: Sifting Project Reveals City’s Earliest Writing,” BAR 37:02.

3.

See, for example, Hershel Shanks, Editorial: “Sell the Dump,” BAR 22:06.

4.

See Strata: “The Taxing Work of Archaeology,” BAR 38:02.

5.

For another object found in one of Shukron’s digs by wet-sifting, see Strata: “ ‘Bethlehem’ from IAA Dig Found by Archaeologist IAA Arrested,” BAR 38:05.

6.

Israel Finkelstein and David Ussishkin, “Back to Megiddo,” BAR 20:01

Endnotes

1.

Gabriel Barkay has written a lengthy scholarly article on this bulla: “A Fiscal Bulla from the Slopes of the Temple Mount – Evidence for the Taxation System of the Judean Kingdom.” See http://templemount.wordpress.com/2011/12/28/finds-from-the-first-and-second-temple-period-city-dumps-at-the-eastern-slopes-of-the-temple-mount.