Image Details
Courtesy Benjamin Mazar, Archaeological Expedition of the Hebrew University and the Israel Exploration Society near the Temple Mount
This inscribed stone originally stood on the pinnacle of the southwest corner of the Temple Mount. Excavators found it toppled onto the pavement below where it lay for 2000 years following the Roman destruction of Jerusalem. The carefully incised Hebrew letters exclaim “To the place of the trumpeting to [declare].” The incomplete inscription probably went on to refer to declaring the beginning and the end of the Sabbath with the blowing of the ram’s horn or shofar. Opposite the inscription a niche was carved. In this niche the priest probably stood when he blew the shofar to announce to all Jerusalem the arrival and departure of the Sabbath.