The sandstone tablet has a 15-line inscription in ancient Hebrew that resembles descriptions in Kings II, 12:1-6, 11-17, said Israel’s Geological Survey, which examined the artifact. The words refer to King Joash, who ruled the area 2,800 years ago.
       In it, the king tells priests to take “holy money ... to buy quarry stones and timber and copper and labor to carry out the duty with faith.” If the work is completed well, “the Lord will protect his people with blessing,” reads the last sentence of the inscription.
       The Jerusalem collector has declined to come forward, and David Zailer, a lawyer for the collector, would not say where the tablet was found or give any further details.

Gabriel Barkai, a biblical archaeologist, said the collector asked the Israel Museum to determine the authenticity of the inscription and was told the museum’s experts could not rule out a forgery. The Israel Museum declined comment Monday.
       The collector then took the tablet to Israel’s Geological Institute, whose experts studied it over the past year. “Our findings show that it is authentic,” said Shimon Ilani, who performed geological tests on the inscription. Carbon dating confirms the writing goes back to the 9th century B.C., he said.
       In the outer layer, Ilani and his colleagues found microscopic flecks of gold that could have been burnt into the stone when a building containing both the tablet and gold objects was destroyed.
       This could mean the tablet was actually part of Solomon’s Temple, which was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 B.C., said Amos Bean, director of the institute.
       “These specks of gold are not natural material, but a sign of human activity,” said Bean. “They could be from gold-plated objects in the home of a very rich man, or a temple. ... It’s hard to believe that anyone would know how to do these things to make it look real.”
       The stone itself was probably from the Dead Sea area and was originally whiter than its current dark gray, Bean said.
       
‘FAR-REACHING IMPLICATIONS’
       Hershel Shanks, editor of the Washington-based Biblical Archaeology Review, said the tablet, if authentic, would be “visual, tactile evidence that reaches across 2,800 years.”
       Barkai said the inscription’s resemblance to biblical passages “has far-reaching implications of the historical importance of the biblical text.”

Several other inscriptions excavated in recent years refer to characters or events from the Bible. A stone inscription found in northern Israel includes the phrase “house of David.” Most experts consider this to be the first ancient writing outside the Bible that refers to King David or the Davidic line of kings, which has corroborated the basic history of the Hebrew Scriptures.
       Adnan Husseini, the director of the Islamic Trust that administers the Jerusalem mosque compound, denied Monday the tablet was found during renovation work there.
       In recent years, the Islamic Trust has turned an underground vault in the compound into a large prayer area, prompting complaints by Israeli archaeologists that important artifacts are being destroyed. At one point, the archaeologists said truckloads of soil from the holy site were dumped uninspected into the nearby Kidron Valley.
       The mosque compound is Islam’s third-holiest site, while the adjacent Western Wall, the last remnant of the second Jewish Temple compound, is Judaism’s holiest site. Most rabbis ban Jews from entering the Temple Mount for religious purity reasons.
       When Israel conquered east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war, it permitted Muslim clergy to continue administering the hilltop area to avoid conflict with the Muslim world.
       The mystery surrounding the stone tablet — its murky origins, appearance on the private antiquities market and a collector unwilling to come forward — mirrors the controversy over an inscription on an ancient burial box that may be the oldest archaeological link to Jesus.
       The burial box, or ossuary, had the inscription, “James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus,” leading some to believe it was used to store the remains of James, the brother of Jesus of Nazareth. Other experts said the inscription might be a forgery.
       
       © 2003 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Quote from: E.Trauma on January 14, 2003, 12:32:44 AM

In recent years, the Islamic Trust has turned an underground vault in the compound into a large prayer area, prompting complaints by Israeli archaeologists that important artifacts are being destroyed. At one point, the archaeologists said truckloads of soil from the holy site were dumped uninspected into the nearby Kidron Valley.

Thats a very cool article. It's crazy that they are finding this type of stuff. The quote above bothers me a bit. What happens if there was something very significant that they dumped out? It could be lost forever just cause somebody's got a bad attitude.  

actually worse... things have been systematically erased across the ages to favour ones particular faith. through the years religions moving to new areas have "burnt the old books" as heretic.

Woha, thats pretty crazy, wonder if they will find anythin else...and I agree with Engle Rock, those guys need to chill a lil, this is history..

  -{bLaDe}

Yeah, I read about that, that was Ron Wyatt's discovery, I've posted about him before... I dunno, he has some compelling stories, but I don't usually bring them up, because they're too tied into christianity, and people get pissed.  Like, for instance, he claims that when he found that in turkey, he was in a cab, and had asked the lord to stop the cab where they should look; the cab broke down three times in the countryside, he placed rocks beside the road as markers, etc. and then went back later, at the first place, he found what he calls an ancorstone (he thinks it hung on the ark), at the second place he found an ancient hut (he thinks it was noah's first house after the waters rescended), and at the third place, he found the boat.  Now, I'm kinda inclined to believe that stuff, but most people wouldn't consider it scientific enough to even discuss.