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priest, the Temple garments, a copper washbasin to be used for purification purposes, incense
utensils, and silver trumpets to beckon worshippers to the Temple. In the planning stages was the
breastplate of the high priest, which will contain twelve gemstones; and the gold electroplated
menorah which will contain 94.6 pounds of gold, giving it an estimated value of $10 million.
In January, 2003, the President of Israel, Moshe Katzav, asked the Prime Minister of the
Vatican, Cardinal Angelo Sudano about what Temple treasures were in the possession of the
Vatican, and to prepare a list of them.
Before Temple services can be legally reinstated according to Biblical Law, a ritual cleansing
must be performed which involves the sacrifice of the Red Heifer (Numbers 19:1-22). The
ceremony has only been performed seven times. The priest would sacrifice an unblemished,
unbroken Red Heifer, after which the remaining ashes were collected and added to the ashes of
the next sacrifice. It took place on the western slope of the Mount of Olives, within sight of the
Holy of Holies. The ashes were then sprinkled upon the waters of a large cistern under the
Temple to prepare them to be used as the water of purification to cleanse sin and defilement. The
last sacrifice occurred in 70 AD, prior to the destruction of the Temple, after which the ashes
were secretly buried. This ritual cleansing would have to be performed on the Temple Mount in
order to reinstate Temple worship as commanded by the Laws of God.
Originally kept in a containment building near the Eastern Gate, archaeological excavations
have been initiated to find the ashes, which according to the ‘Copper Scroll’ found at Qumran,
were buried in a container made of clay, and dung from the Red Heifer. If they can not be
located, the Temple Institute, on the belief that the tradition of the “ashes of continuity” is a
mistranslation, maintains that the original ashes are not necessary. In October, 1989, the Chief
Rabbi of Israel dispatched a team of scientists to Sweden to purchase the frozen embryos of a
particular breed of red heifers in order to impregnate a heifer in Israel and breed an animal that
would fulfill the scriptural requirements. However, the latest report is that a herd of red Angus
cattle have been discovered in Mississippi, and a group of these have been sent to Israel for later
use.
Vendyl Jones, a former Baptist minister turned archaeologist in 1977, said to be the
inspiration for the creation of the fictional movie character Indiana Jones (though producers
Steven Spielberg and George Lucas deny it), while searching in Jericho area caves for the Ark of
the Covenant, found a clay jar containing a unique incense oil which dated back to the time of
the second Jewish Temple, and contained the five ingredients the Bible identified as being part of
the oil used to anoint kings. One of these ingredients was an oil called afars’mon, which was
taken from the sap of the rare balsam tree that grew near Jericho at a wadi known as Ein Gedi,
near the area of Qumran. The oil was very rare, and when Rome invaded the Qumran community
before 70 AD, the Essenes burned the only known grove of these balsam trees, which are now
considered extinct.
This special anointing oil is listed in the Copper Scroll, and in 1988, using the clues given
there, a worker, Benny Ayers, who was with a group of Christian archaeologists and volunteers
(including Dr. Gary Collett and Dr. Nathan Meyers), under the direction of Dr. Joseph Patrich
from the Hebrew University’s Institute of Archaeology, found an ancient clay container wrapped
in palm leaves, in a hole three feet deep, on the floor of a cave adjacent to the one where Vendyl
Jones would later discover some incense. Professor Ze’ev Aizenshtat and Dorit Aschengrau at
the laboratory of Hebrew University’s Casali Institute of Applied Chemistry, used Carbon-14
dating and said that the oil was put in the container during the first century, and is believed to be
the anointing oil that was used in the Temple. The oil’s chemical composition was such, that one