Second Temple artifacts may be buried under Ein Karem toiletThere seem to be three issues here. First is the treatment of the site by the developers, and I leave those closer to the situation than I to evaluate the concerns.
Neighborhood residents are convinced the bathroom-come-toolshed, which they call "the monster," was just a pretext for building an edifice that would some day serve as a restaurant.
By Nir Hasson Tags: Israel archeology Temple Mount Jerusalem Jewish World (Haaretz)
Have the Tourism Ministry and the Jerusalem municipality buried treasures from the Second Temple under a giant lavatory? That possibility is just one of the problems cited by opponents of a plan to improve a spring in the city's Ein Karem neighborhood, at one of Israel's most important Christian tourism sites.
[...]
But perhaps worst of all was the handling of the site's archaeological relics. A salvage dig conducted by the Israel Antiquities Authority discovered ancient water systems that carried water from the spring to terraces on the wadi. This led the deputy mayor of Jerusalem, Naomi Tsur, to call a meeting in November 2009 to discuss how these relics could be preserved. The meeting, attended by Tourism Ministry and Antiquities Authority representatives, decided to freeze construction of the building and look into building an archaeological park there instead.
But on the very day the meeting was held, the tourist corporation's vice president, David Mingelgreen, sent the municipality a letter saying that, for reasons unknown, all the archaeological findings had been buried under tons of earth the day before. Thus, by the time the meeting occurred, there was nothing left to salvage.
From his letter, Mingelgreen appeared to view the findings as a nuisance. "The goal is to refrain as far as possible from work that will require archaeological digs," he wrote.
But Ron Havilio, a neighborhood resident and leading opponent of the project who has researched Ein Karem's history extensively, believes the archaeological loss may have been even greater. There is a well-known legend about a Palestinian treasure being buried in one of the neighborhood's houses during the War of Independence in 1948, and Havilio - who is distantly related to Yossi Havilio - claims this legendary treasury may actually have comprised treasures from the Second Temple.
His source for this claim is the Copper Scroll, one of the Dead Sea Scrolls discovered in 1952. The scroll, which was written on metal, details the places where the Second Temple's treasures were hidden after its destruction in 70 C.E. Among other things it says: "At the ashuach in Beit Hakerem, when you go 10 cubits to the left, are 62 talents of silver."
The accepted view is that "ashuach" signifies a reservoir and that the ancient Beit Hakerem is the modern-day neighborhood of Ein Karem. The only question, Havilio argued, is the location of the ancient pool referred to in the scroll - and analyses of the area's former geography indicate that one possible answer is right under the giant lavatory.
"There is a chance, even if only a small one, that an exciting discovery could be made at Ein Karem, one of the most important discoveries in Israel of the last 100 years," he said.
[...]
Second is the question of whether a treasure from the Copper Scroll could be at the site. This sort of thing is always possible, but establishing the location of any of the sites mentioned in the Copper Scroll is a maddeningly difficult challenge, so I'm pretty skeptical. It also seems doubtful that many, if any, of the caches of precious metals listed in the Scroll have been left undiscovered until the present. Richard Freund (of recent discovery-of-Atlantis-yet-again fame) thought he found one, but his case is not philologically compelling.
Third, how did this "Palestinian treasure" (from the Copper Scroll?) come to be buried in someone's house in 1948?
In short, I am doubtful about any connection with the Copper Scroll, but I hope the site is nevertheless being handled with appropriate archaeological care.
I have a recent post on the Copper Scroll and other treasure hoards, real and imagined, here, with links as usual.
