After a two-year break in operations, the Temple Mount Sifting Project (TMSP) recently held a grand reopening ceremony with a one-day exhibition of 300 artifacts they had discovered in their first 15 years of work. In addition to coins, weapons, and floor tiles from the Temple Mount, TMSP displayed a 2700-year-old clay seal impression with a partial inscription in Hebrew reading, "(Belonging to) […]lyahu (son of) Immer." The fragmented inscription has been reconstructed as "Belonging to Ga'alyahu son of Immer," referring to a priestly family named in Jeremiah 20:1. The TMSP has a new location in a previously vacant grove in East Jerusalem, near the Mount of Olives and Hebrew University's Mount Scopus campus. The project will continue to operate under the scientific auspices of Bar-Ilan University with a rotating staff of archaeologists to supervise the volunteers who work at the 20 tables set up for the wet sifting. They plan to continue to sift through the thousands of tons of dirt that was removed from the Temple Mount in 1999 and dumped in the Kidron Valley.
Off-site Links:
- http://tmsifting.org/en/
- https://www.timesofisrael.com/temple-mount-sifting-project-reboots-to-seek-more-direct-evidence-of-1st-temple/
- https://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Temple-Mount-Sifting-Project-relaunches-for-Jerusalem-Day-591390
