The Temple Mount sits at the center of biblical prophecy, sacred history and future expectation. Scripture identifies it as the site of the First and Second Temples and foretells a Third Temple that will play a central role in the last days. Each archaeological discovery connected to the Mount adds weight to that biblical narrative. A newly uncovered menorah pendant does precisely that.
A Historic Find in the Shadow of the Temple Mount
Archaeologists have uncovered a rare 1,300- to 1,400-year-old lead pendant engraved with a seven-branched menorah, found beneath the southwestern corner of the Temple Mount near the City of David.
“We’re talking about a little pendant… found in the southwestern corner of the Temple Mount Jerusalem,” Israeli tour guide Yoav Rotem said on CBN News. “This little pendant of a menorah… was someone was wearing for sure a Jew.”
The artifact dates to the Late Byzantine period, a time when Jews were officially banned from residing in Jerusalem.
Exceptionally Rare and Archaeologically Unmatched
The Israel Antiquities Authority says the pendant is extraordinarily rare.
“Research has identified pendants of glass and other metals decorated with a menorah, but we know of only one other pendant in the world bearing the symbol of the menorah, made of lead,” said IAA researchers Yuval Baruch, Filip Vukosavović, Esther Rakow-Mellet and Shulamit Terem.
The pendant is decorated identically on both sides, reinforcing its role as a deliberate expression of Jewish identity.
Proof Jews Never Stopped Coming to Jerusalem
Despite imperial bans, the evidence is unmistakable.
“This is maybe the game changer,” Rotem said. “It’s actually showing us maybe a Jew who visited Jerusalem or was living in Jerusalem back then.”
IAA researcher Yuval Baruch said the pendant proves that Jews continued traveling to Jerusalem even when forbidden. Wearing it under such conditions, he said, “is not only the essence of a personal commitment to one’s religious faith … but it also attests that during periods when imperial edicts were issued prohibiting Jews from residing in the city, they did not stop coming there!”
The use of lead further supports its significance. “There is a strong basis to this contention, because lead was considered a common and particularly popular material for making amulets at that time,” Baruch added.
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The Menorah as a Declaration of Faith and Identity
The menorah predates the Star of David as Judaism’s primary symbol, rooted in the Tabernacle and the Temple itself.
“Right before the second temple was destroyed, we start seeing it in archaeology as the main and almost the ultimate emblem of saying, ‘Hey, I am a Jew,’” Rotem explained.
He said the pendant carries that same message forward. “It’s saying, ‘I am a Jew. I’m here in my homeland, in my holy city, next to the place where the temple will rebuild.’”
Archaeology, Prophecy and What Comes Next
The pendant is now on public display during Hanukkah, a season centered on the rededication of the Temple and the triumph of light. That timing is hard to ignore.
As discoveries like this continue to emerge around the Temple Mount, they reinforce what the Bible has stated all along: Jewish connection to this site never ended. With growing interest among Jews to worship once again on the Temple Mount and increasing archaeological confirmation beneath its surface, the convergence of history and prophecy is becoming impossible to dismiss.
Each artifact pulled from the ground strengthens the case that the Bible is not only spiritually authoritative, but historically reliable and prophetically precise.
James Lasher, a seasoned writer and editor at Charisma Media, combines faith and storytelling with a background in journalism from Otterbein University and ministry experience in Guatemala and the LA Dream Center. A Marine Corps and Air Force veteran, he is the author of The Revelation of Jesus: A Common Man’s Commentary and a contributor to Charisma magazine.
