{"id":10599,"date":"2023-06-27T10:45:41","date_gmt":"2023-06-27T07:45:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tmsifting.org\/en\/?p=10599"},"modified":"2023-06-27T14:11:03","modified_gmt":"2023-06-27T11:11:03","slug":"find-and-finder-of-the-month-yiftah-levi-found-a-knights-templar-horseshoe-nail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tmsifting.org\/en\/2023\/06\/27\/find-and-finder-of-the-month-yiftah-levi-found-a-knights-templar-horseshoe-nail\/","title":{"rendered":"Find and Finder of the Month: Yiftah Levi Found a Knights Templar Horseshoe Nail"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n

For want of a nail the shoe was lost <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For want of a shoe the horse was lost <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For want of a horse the rider was lost <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For want of a rider the battle was lost <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For want of a battle the kingdom was lost <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.<\/p>\nJames Balwin’s version of a 13th<\/sup> Century proverb<\/em><\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

About eight centuries have passed since this horseshoe nail was lost, and it was found by Yiftach Levi, 12, of Tekoa. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We can\u2019t be certain how and why this particular nail was lost, and we’ll never know whether any battles were lost due to its absence. But there is one question we can tackle \u2013 how did it get here? Most of the soil that we sift comes from the entryway of the structure in the southeastern corner of the Temple Mount compound, known as Solomon\u2019s Stables. Despite the fact that King Solomon never heard of this place, built quite a while after his time, it was indeed used as stables \u2013 during the time of the Crusades. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Europeans of the time saw the building at the southern end of the Temple Mount as Solomon\u2019s Palace. And indeed, in the first years of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, here resided the Frankish ruler. But soon afterwards, the structure was granted to a newly formed military order, and so the Al-Aqsa Mosque became the headquarters of the new order named \u201cThe Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon\u201d, commonly known as the Knights Templar<\/strong>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, what\u2019s a knight without a horse, and every horse needs a stable \u2013 and so, the ancient sub-floor structure next to \u201cSolomon\u2019s Palace\u201d soon found itself called \u201cSolomon\u2019s Stables\u201d. Till this day, one can see the holes drilled in the ancient pillars, where the horses were tied up, and, occasionally, we find another reminder of ancient Jerusalem\u2019s Equestrian population.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The piles of d\u00e9bris removed from the Temple Mount during 1999\u20132000 came from three locations: The majority came from the large pit which was dug while creating a staircase into the northern fa\u00e7ade of Solomon’s Stables. This, along with a smaller amount of d\u00e9bris which came out during renovations done within the ancient structure over the prior three years, were removed form the Temple Mount, and at first taken to the municipal garbage dump, but most of the material ended up being dumped in the nearby Kidron Valley. Several months later, leveling and gardening work just north of this area created additional piles of d\u00e9bris which were removed to a vacant lot. When we began our research, these piles were marked as “Area T”, while the piles at the Kidron were marked as “Area K” (with several sub-divisions).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To date, we’ve discovered approximately 350 horseshoe nails, many from crusader times. Most of these nails were discovered in Area K, which includes material taken out of Solomon’s Stables proper. As such, these nails are the most direct tangible evidence of the actual use of the structure during the Crusader period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/
Crusader horseshoe nails discovered at the Temple Mount Sifting Project<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"\/
The pillars of Solomon’s Stables, with a hole used to hitch horses (Early 20th century photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Old photo by F\u00e9lix Bonfils (1870\u20131880) of Solomon’s Stables before the removal of detritus<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For want of a nail the shoe was lost  For want of a shoe the horse was lost  For want of a horse the rider was lost  For want of a rider the battle was lost  For want of a battle the kingdom was lost  And all for the want of a horseshoe nail. James […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":80,"featured_media":10608,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[94,473,118,472,173,244],"class_list":["post-10599","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-finds","tag-crusader-periods","tag-fiddle-key-nail","tag-find-of-the-month","tag-horse-shoe-nail","tag-knights-templar","tag-solomons-stables"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/tmsifting.org\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2023\/06\/yiftah-fi-1.jpg","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmsifting.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10599","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmsifting.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmsifting.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmsifting.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/80"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmsifting.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10599"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/tmsifting.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10599\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10625,"href":"https:\/\/tmsifting.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10599\/revisions\/10625"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmsifting.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10608"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmsifting.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10599"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmsifting.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10599"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmsifting.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10599"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}