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Israel National News is reporting that traces of the First Temple have been found during the digging of a trench in the Temple Mount. The following is an excerpt from the news report:
The unauthorized dig of a trench this past summer by the Moslem Waqf on the Temple Mount had a thin silver lining: Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) personnel monitoring the trench-digging have, for the first time.
It was assumed that precious findings were destroyed.
The IAA studied an archaeological level dating to the First Temple Period, exposed in the area close to the south-eastern corner of the raised platform surrounding the Dome of the Rock.
Jerusalem District Archaeologist Yuval Baruch uncovered fragments of ceramic table wares, animal bones, and more. The finds date from the 8th to 6th centuries BCE; the First Temple existed between the 9th and 5th centuries BCE, having been built by King Solomon in 832 and destroyed in 422 BCE.
The archaeological team – Baruch of the IAA, Prof. Sy Gitin, Director of the W. F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research in Jerusalem, Prof. Israel Finkelstein of Tel Aviv University and Prof. Ronny Reich of Haifa University – reached the conclusion, after examining the finds, that their characteristics and location may aid scholars in reconstructing the dimensions and boundaries of the Temple Mount during the First Temple Period.
The finds include fragments of bowl rims, bases and body sherds, the base of a juglet used for the ladling of oil, the handle of a small juglet, and the rim of a storage jar. The bowl sherds were decorated with wheel burnishing lines characteristic of the First Temple Period.
The Israel Antiquities Authority is promising to hold a conference to discuss the findings and the reasons it associates these finding with the First Temple.
I hope that this conference is held as soon as possible. There are so many news coming out of this dig in the Temple Mount that the Israel Antiquities Authority should make an official statement of what is fact and what is propaganda.
Claude Mariottini
Profesor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary
Tags: Archaeology, Solomon, Temple , Temple Mount
Dr. Claude Mariottini - Professor of Old Testament 
>Could you comment about the dates mentioned in the excerpt. The article states, “the First Temple existed between the 9th and 5th centuries BCE, having been built by King Solomon in 832 and destroyed in 422 BCE.”I’m not a Hebrew Bible specialist, but those dates seem to be off from what I normally considered to be the acceptable range of dates for the first temple. Granted, there’s a lot that is not known about chronology in that time period and texts sometimes date the reigns of kings in what seems to be round or symbolic numbers. But still, dating the destruction of the first temple to 422 seems quite late.Thanks in advance.
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>Dear Friend,Thank you for your comment. The dates given in the article follow the Orthodox Jewish Timeline. This means that the chronological dates on the history of Israel are based on the dates found in a Jewish work called Seder Olam Rabbah.The religious dates adopted by Orthodox Jews differ from the secular chronology adopted in scholarly writings. In the secular calendar, the temple was destroyed in 587 BCE, but in the Orthodox Jewish calendar, the Temple was destroyed in 422 BCE.If you want to know more about the Seder Olam Rabbah, click here.Claude Mariottini
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>Thanks. That’s very interesting.
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>Dear Friend,Welcome and thank you for visiting my blog.Claude Mariottini
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