Sent: Friday, 07/11/2008 4:12 PM (Singapore Time), 10:12 AM (Israel Time)  [Above: Our team joyous at finding an artifact in the rubble. 7 Nov 2008] Good Morning Temple mount antiquities salvage operation. First stop. First for NCC group and SG group. The second temple expanded by Herod and part of it extended beyond Mt Moriah and to support this, the extension was built over foundations and arches. This area is called Solomon's stables This area was left untounced until a couple of years ago when Muslim wafq decided to 'renovate' the Solomon stables and turn it into a mosque. This was illegal because they just forcefully excavated the ground in Solomon's Stables and just dumped the ground and rubble in a dump site No archaeological thought was taken at all in undertaking the 'renovations' which seemed more like mass destruction of the site. Temple mount antiquities salvage operation group has been sifting through the rubble to find historical treasures. We were given an opportunity to sift through the buckets of rubble with the aid of high pressure water. My team of 3 went through about 5 buckets.  Most interesting finds by the entire Off The Beaten Track group were handles of pottery and mosaic tiles with golden tinges. Now we are going to visit Tank museum at Latrun in the Ayalon Valley. Shalom, Terence |