Wet-Sifting Produces Flood of Small Finds
Excavation on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem is illegal, so the Waqf’s removal of truckload after truckload of dirt from the holy site without archaeological supervision was a crime on one level, if not on another. The silver lining, however, is that archaeologists Gabriel Barkay and Zachi Dvira’s Temple Mount Sifting Project has provided a unique opportunity to see and study the wealth of artifacts that have been buried on the Temple Mount for decades, centuries and millennia. Objects from every period, going back more than 3,000 years, have been recovered—a few of which are shown here, along with other finds from the sifting project.
