In the latest edition of Israel Museum Studies in Archaeology Volume 12 2025, there's an article describing the results of new efforts to investigate "A Roman Spatha Sword and Scabbard From Excavations on Mount Zion in Jerusalem" found over 50 years ago.

The authors are Shimon Gibson University of North Carolina at Charlotte; Rafael Y. Lewis Bar-Ilan University; Yarden Pagelson Ben-Gurion University of the Negev; Dudi Mevorah Israel Museum, Jerusalem; Hadas Seri Israel Museum, Jerusalem.

The spatha was found south of the Zion Gate:

Here it is in situ:

And its appearance in 1971:

By all means, read it even it it can be very technical. It is dated to late Second Temple Period and its following century.

What excited my imagination, however, is its exact location when found. It "was uncovered on 3 October 1971 in earthen sediments and fills within a plastered stepped ritual bath (miqweh) inside one of the rooms of a very large Early Roman mansion exposed in Area I (Square 6, Locus 12, Basket (B) 1254). This was the first area to be excavated on the eastern side of the Armenian courtyard of the St. Saviour property, due south of the Zion Gate (Fig. 1)."

A mikveh?

We have a novel waiting to be written.

What was a Roman sword doing in a mikveh?

Was it stolen from a soldier or his corpse and stored there?

Did a Roman soldier attempt an assault there?

Did a Jewish woman belong to a Jewish fighting force and had hidden it there?

If you have any other suggestions, comment below.

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I found this term in The Guardian, in a March 23, 2026 story:

"Parties that represent 𝙋𝙖𝙡𝙚𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙣𝙞𝙖𝙣 𝙘𝙞𝙩𝙞𝙯𝙚𝙣𝙨 of Israel are likely to offer the only path for the opposition parties to form a government."

From a new book, Ottoman-era Documents from the Cairo Genizah.

A Rabbi Shmuel set off for Jerusalem from Egypt in 1615 for a 20-day trek and required a document that he coulkd present to various government officials along the way which would provide him security from the dangers of raiding Bedouin as well as food and lodging. It also afforded him escorts for his protection although once he reached Jerusalem's gates, he would be required to make a payment to enter the city.

Think about it.

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From "The Nusseibeh Family: Khazraj Roots That Grew and Blossomed in Jerusalem", July 10, 2024:

The Nusseibehs were named after Nusseibeh bint Ka‘b of Medina, also known as Umm ‘Ammara, one of the earliest women to convert to Islam. During the Battle of Uhud near Medina in 625 CE between the early Muslims and the tribe of Quraysh, Umm ‘Ammara is said to have treated and cared for the wounded at night and fought alongside the Prophet during the day, sustaining wounds herself...

The detailed origins of the family are recorded by Hafiz Abdul Rahim Nusseibeh al-Khazraji in his book The Khazraj Nusseibeh Family: Custodians of History and the Present. Extensively researched and drawing on more than 830 Ottoman documents related to the family, the book traces 600 years of the family’s lineage since the advent of Islam. The sources used to tell these elaborate details also depict the family’s high social and religious status in Jerusalem, owing in large part to its members participating in the Islamic conquest of the city under the leadership of Caliph Umar in 638 CE.

Arrival in Jerusalem

Regarding the family’s arrival in Jerusalem, Hafiz Nusseibeh explains that, among the warriors in Caliph Umar’s army was Abdullah ibn Nusseibeh, the son of Umm ‘Ammara. The Umari conquest of Jerusalem, which included a four-month siege of the city, led to the capitulation of the Byzantines under Patriarch Sophronius. But upon conquering the city, Caliph Umar instructed his Muslim army to protect the churches and other non-Muslim shrines, assigning Abdullah ibn Nusseibeh the responsibility and honor of protecting the Church of the Holy Sepulchre from any attacks by Muslims or others. This was part of a treaty, known as the Pact of Umar, reached in 637 CE between the invading Muslim army and the non-Muslims of the Levant. As part of the pact, non-Muslims were granted security, protection, and rights under Muslim rule in exchange for loyalty..."

"...Jerusalem Story sat down with one of the eldest members of the Nusseibeh family, 70-year-old Wajih Nusseibeh, who has been responsible for opening and closing the door of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre for more than 40 years. We met in his home in the Wadi al-Joz neighborhood of Jerusalem, in the presence of a younger family member, Munir Nusseibeh, to recount the family’s enduring presence in Jerusalem for nearly 14 centuries.

Wajih was born in 1949 in the Nusseibeh family home in the Musrara neighborhood of Jerusalem near the Damascus Gate...Wajih described his Khazraj origins, explaining that the Nusseibeh family’s roots go back to Medina, and that their ancestor, Umm ‘Ammara, was a devoted fighter who stood by the Prophet Muhammad. 

“We came to Jerusalem as conquerors during the time of Umar ibn al-Khattab..."

Arabs in 'Palestine' - since the 7th century, as conquerors.

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Extract from the 1920 Palin Report on the "Disturbances" of April 1920 in Jerusalem:

Candace Owens

Max Blumenthal

Nick Fuentes

Tucker Carlson to be uploaded soon.

Why do mainstream/legacy media outlets ignore the content of their remarks, what they portend in a socio-political sense as hate speech?

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UPDATE

"Now that Trump has allied with Israel in a war for Iranian regime change, there’s no made-up story wild enough for the anti-neocon gang to pretend that either Trump is “with them” or neocons are in despair. They feel boxed out, and they’re enraged.

Tucker Carlson has called Operation Epic Fury “absolutely disgusting and evil.” Marjorie Taylor Greene responded by saying that the Trump administration was packed with a “bunch of sick f--king liars.” Nick Fuentes instructed his simian audience to vote for Democrats in the midterms. Blackwater founder Erik Prince said, “I don’t see how this is in keeping with the president’s MAGA commitment.” And on and on it goes...they’re lost in their own fantasy roleplay game where motives are disguised or inverted, double agents are showing their faces, and state-backed cabals wield wizardly powers of influence—you know, it’s the Jews’ fault. Megyn Kelly simply confessed, “This feels very much to me like it is clearly Israel’s war.”...Vance, after all, once assured a groyper at a live event that “Israel doesn’t control this president.” And in downplaying the rise of the right-wing Jew-haters he was courting, he claimed that the whole issue of anti-Semitism on the right was made up by pro-Israel conservatives to distract Americans from discussing the supposedly problematic U.S.-Israel relationship.

Three days ago, that relationship showed the world the most successful single day of warfighting in history...the real question is how Vance tries to explain to the hate-peddling right his own involvement in the most ambitious U.S.-Israel military effort we’ve ever seen. Another is how he tries to justify his association with the hate-peddlers to the rest of us. This is a dilemma of his own making. Vance thought he could court the right’s Tucker wing without losing conservatives. And he thought he could distance himself sufficiently from Trump’s pro-Israel stance to keep the Tucker wing happy. 

The war in Iran could turn in any number of directions. At the moment, it looks far more promising than Vance’s battle for the future of the right.

Abe Greenwald,  the executive editor of COMMENTARY.

With the conquest by British military forces of Jerusalem in December 1917, both British diplomatic and political figures, as well as Zionists, began to plan for the future administration of the territory. The Balfour Declaration made it a clear government policy that the country would develop into a homeland for the Jews. Nevertheless, as the Sykes-Picot negotiations had shown, there were multiple interests that needed to be attended to including economic, strategic and religious in natre.

In December 1918, Ze'ev Jabotinsky penned a long essay and part of it discussed the issue of the Holy Places. It follows in its original form, with Jabotinsky's editing and crossing out:

          A few words chaned the choice of the protecting Powers “Trustee” – the protecting Power to be put by the peace conference in charge of Palestine. This choice is a matter to be decided by international agreement.

          The Holy Places should be carefully

          We suggest

          Whether this scheme of government, when applied, would leave any real and genuine need for special arrangements safeguarding the Holy Places of the New Testament, of Christianity Holy Places is a question to be decided in the first place by Christ the Christians Powers themselves. As outsiders we can only say that, with a Christian Power holding the supreme authority over Palestine, there does not seem to be any need for proclaiming them “extra territorial” “ex territorial”. The intersects of the different Churches into which Christianity is divided could be protected by placing certain localities, town-guarders, or holding under special joint Boards representing all the sections concerned. However, Zionists never intended to put forward object even to extra exterritorialization provided it should be strictly limited to places where really constitutional areas which really and palpably constitute places of Christian pilgrimage and worship.

          As to the holy places the Old Testament, their exterritorialization from a Jewish “National Home” would of course be out of the question. We fully admit the and appreciate the interest right of all monotheistic religions to consider them as our and their common property are entitled to, take in them, but it would be really monstrous to deny that Jews’ connection with them is incomparably the most intimate. Here again joint Boards could be instituted to secure Christian and Mohammedan as well as Jewish representation, but the places themselves should remain for even incorporated into the Jewish national patrimony.

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