The efforts of Sir Charles Warren, a 19th century archaeologist and English officer in the British Royal Engineers, who conducted one of the first major excavations at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, may have helped make an important find almost a century later, the Daily Express reports.
Describing Warren as "a real-life Indiana Jones", Tom Meyer, a professor of Bible studies at the privately-funded Shasta Bible College and Graduate School, in California, explained that, "while digging an excavation shaft at the base of the southwest corner of the Temple Mount, Warren penetrated the first-century pavement laid by Herod the Great and perhaps cracked the edge of a large stone that had been buried there for almost 2,000 years".
"This important stone, now called 'The Trumpeting Place Inscription,' wasn’t discovered by Warren at that time; it remained hidden for about 100 more years until it was discovered in 1970 by Israeli archaeologist Benjamin Mazar", Meyer stated.
Noting that "it is possible that the stone broke when it was thrown off the top of the Temple Mount by the Romans in 70 AD”, the professor suggested that the stone's discovery "confirms the testimony of Josephus the first-century Jewish historian who states that the Jewish priests had a designated place to stand on the Temple Mount from which to sound a shofar, or trumpet, marking the beginning and end of the Sabbath."
"The claims are false which state that there is not the smallest indication of the existence of a Jewish temple on this place in the past and the Temple Mount was never there", Powell claimed, adding that "archaeology, ancient texts like Josephus and the Bible agree and once again irresistibly demonstrate that a Jewish Temple once stood on the Temple Mount."