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Precise of the Al-Aqsa beams were brought to the compact of Ofra in the 1980s. Pictured: Ze'ev Erlich, who helped car the ancient wooden pieces from a junkyard north of Jerusalem [Credit: Matti Friedman/Times of Israel]"
In a padlocked cuddle space under a semi-detached in the compact of Ofra, in the West Onslaught, lies an even outsized heap of still beams, some with rusted metal nails. Nonetheless completed of the exceedingly beams can be found in one of the rooms of the Rockefeller Museum, coating Jerusalem's Old City.
In spite of their unattractive example, the beams are uncommon and elementary to scholars since of their place of origin - the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Place of pilgrimage Ascend - and their age: Precise were hewed from leaves felled close to 3,000 living ago.
The beams offer a impressive historical touch of Jerusalem, through Indirect cathedrals, opening Muslim houses of prayer and, not unfathomably, the ancient temple dense itself. But nonetheless gift are signs of transformed displease in them - through an subsection this month in Biblical Archaeology Gather together, a US gush - the countless hundred distinct beams grasp never been subjected to a blanket philosopher study, and a choice of are in difficulty of oxidization and rotting.
The cap iteration of Al-Aqsa was built in the unhurried 600s CE on the Place of pilgrimage Ascend, accepted to Muslims as al-Haram al-Sharif, or the Skillful Sanctuary. In the function of the Muslim builders constructed the cover and chains they re-used made of wood that had been used in foggy structures near, prevalent practice in the ancient world.
Inhabitants structures, scholars say, disguise not decently materials dating to the time of the second Jewish temple in Jerusalem 2,000 living ago - but to the time of the cap, as a choice of as eight centuries ahead.
Heaps of the beams were removed from Al-Aqsa in the unhurried 1930s, here a repair that followed two earthquakes, and some were eventful by British scholars to the Rockefeller Museum, where they carry on. Considerably beams were removed in a well along repair of the structure's ground under Jordanian rule in the 1960s.
In 1984, a scholar from Tel Aviv Literary, Nili Liphschitz, published a prompt precise paper looking at 140 of the beams in a Hebrew journal, Eretz Yisrael, lay aside with two other scholars.
Liphschitz, a dendochronologist - a official in shaping the age of leaves - found that most of the beams she examined were of Turkish oak, with a minor production of Lebanese cedars. Portray were plus beams of cypress and countless other types of trudge.
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Beams (passed away) for the Golden Entry on the Place of pilgrimage Ascend, this week [Credit: Matti Friedman/Times of Israel]"
By analyzing the tree rings and using carbon-14 dating, she found, unavoidably, that some of the trudge was from the opening Muslim period. One of the cedars, for example, was about 1,340 living old, or gruffly the exceedingly age as Al-Aqsa. (The store of fade for the fairly unbecoming dating setup was 250 living.)
But others were foggy, dating to Indirect become old, and still others old to Roman become old, not far off from the era of the Dash Place of pilgrimage in Jerusalem.
Nonetheless completed gorgeous were her effect a propos one of the cypress beams. The age of the shaft "was found to be 2,600 living," she wrote, with a store of fade of 180 living. That located it for 630 B.C.E. - not far off from 50 living ahead the damage of the Early on Place of pilgrimage.
And one of the oak beams was even older: 2,860 living. That inescapable the tree had been cut down not far off from 880 B.C.E, opening in the Early on Place of pilgrimage period.
Portray was no evidence involving the beams to the temple itself, and in her paper Liphshitz seemed less informed in the viable possible or biblical connections than in what the beams important about withstand changes in the part. The condensed tallness of some of the tree rings, she wrote, seemed to spell out that a culminate drought had struck the part in the 5th century C.E.
Her paper drew condensed customary signpost, but a hearsay she delivered the exceedingly engagement happened to be attended by two people of Ofra, one of the cap communities location in the West Onslaught by Way Emunim, the holier-than-thou planter tempo. One of the men was Ze'ev Erlich, today a wonderful jaunt guide and historian. The other was Yehuda Etzion, a eminent planter principal and a piquant member in the return of Jewish ritual to the Place of pilgrimage Ascend.
"Yehuda walked out behind schedule the hearsay and aimed - we grasp to get individuals beams," Erlich recalled.
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The Place of pilgrimage Ascend, with the black-domed Al-Aqsa mosque in the foreground [Credit: Nati Shohat/Flash90]"
Previously the repair of the 1960s, it appeared, the Waqf - the Islamic build up still in charge of the day-to-day straight away of the holy site - had sold some of the beams as fleck to an Armenian hawker, Mussa Baziyan, who had a junkyard north of Jerusalem. Baziyan was business the trudge to carpenters. As it happened, the Ofra settlers had done profit-making with the hawker, wholesale old nonsense beds from an insane safe haven for use in a new dormitory.
Etzion armed for the in congress in charge of Ofra to pay, and had trucks procure the 100 or so excess beams from Baziyan's set to the compact.
Later that engagement, Etzion was arrested as part of a Jewish copse that had killed Palestinian seminary students, maimed mayors of West Onslaught cities, scheduled to failure Arab buses in East Jerusalem - and was maneuverings to admirer up the Islamic shrines of the Skillful Sanctuary to pave the way for the reconstruction of a Jewish temple on the revolt.
The beams lay coating for a time. Later, Erlich had them transferred to an indoor cuddle space, where he showed them to a teller of tales this week. Six beams which were found to grasp engraved ribbons are stored at an secretive suite not in in the compact. Samples from 14 of the beams at Ofra grasp been eventful to the Weizmann Set up in Rehovot for carbon dating, and Erlich is instantly awaiting the argue.
Precise of the Al-Aqsa beams disguise inscriptions in Arabic and Greek. One shaft at the Rockefeller Museum, for example, bears the Greek words, "In the time of the most holy archbishop and patriarch Peter and the most God-beloved this whole spot of St. Thomas was erected." The Peter in gush was patriarch of Jerusalem in the mid-500s C.E., and the shaft requisite grasp been used in a Indirect church of the time.
In a 1997 paper, Liphschitz and a second scholar, Gideon Biger, optional that some of the trudge for Al-Aqsa may grasp come from the ruins of the affected Indirect church accepted as the Nea, crushed by shake or war in the opening 600s. Considerably beams power grasp come from an earlier wooden mosque that a 7th-century pilgrim described distinct on the Place of pilgrimage Ascend ahead Al-Aqsa was constructed.
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Beams in a store at Ofra, this week [Credit: Matti Friedman/Times of Israel]"
Inhabitants structures plus in the order of definitely used trudge from earlier buildings. The story of the beams - moving from vanquisher to vanquisher and from one religion to modern outspoken the centuries - is the story of Jerusalem.
"The cypress made of wood, old to the 1st century BC, was probably eventful from a completed ancient massive organization, built in or not far off from Jerusalem in that era," the two scholars wrote. That was the time of Herod's immense innovation of the Dash Place of pilgrimage dense.
In this month's subsection in Biblical Archaeology Gather together, Israeli archaeologist Peretz Reuven singled out modern shaft, along with individuals instantly standoffish on the Place of pilgrimage Ascend, in a heap moment to the Golden Entry. It was cataloged by British Authorization officials in the 1930s as production 13.
Joyful 13, he wrote, not decently has Roman-style ribbons but plus signs of columns at intervals of 10.8 feet. "Portray was a still interval between the columns in Herod's Stately Stoa, a terrific basilica that stood on the southern end of the Place of pilgrimage Ascend," Reuven noted. That is where Al-Aqsa now sits.
Energy some of the beams treachery not far off from Jerusalem and not in be from Herod's temple complex? "I bank on the solution is trustworthy,'" Reuven wrote. "Precise of the beams may even be from the Place of pilgrimage."
It is remarkable for trudge to after everything else for thousands of living, according to archaeologist Aren Maeir of Bar-Ilan Literary. At Maeir's uncertain kill of the three-millennia-old Philistine civic of Gath, for example, decently carbonized trudge wreckage after everything else.
But it is equivalent if trudge is standoffish fashionable and cared for, he aimed.
"In general, trudge does not after everything else in Mediterranean withstand - pool like beams are used another time and another time and are curated covet behind schedule they would grasp regularly survived," he aimed.
These pieces of trudge, he aimed, "were probably used robotically over the ages, as fantastic beams would be in a choice of hand baggage. So they are with no trouble archaeological materials, nonetheless of course whether they are from the temple is modern gush."
"Author: Matti Friedman Source: The Grow old of Israel [May 22, 2013]"
