The Machon HaMikdash, or the Temple Institute, in the Old City of Jerusalem, has now built a model of the Mizbei'ach.
The challenge for creating a mizbeiach has always been the issue that the stones cannot come into contact with iron. They collected stones for the altar from the Dead Sea. Perhaps because they can find large tones there whose sides have been smoothed down by the water. I find it particularly interesting, as you can see in the video, they used a shovel that was plated with gold, so the sand they were going to be using as filler would not come into contact with the iron of the shovel.
Here you can see images of the final product.
As someone who spends a heck of a lot of time with various tools, I have to say the question of iron tools has much simple solutions. Plastics for one would be a much more ideal solution that would keep out iron in any way shape or form- if you are just dealing with sand, even hard sand, there are plastics that would work.
ReplyDeleteIf you insist it needs to be metal there are other options. While many of my tools are steal or iron, some of the best, strongest and most durable are other metals like titanium or carbide- seems to me using gold to plate an iron tool is just wasteful (ignoring for a moment that it is still, essentially, an iron tool that just happens to be covered in gold).
it is strange and I was surprised that that is enough of a solution. What if some gold scrapes off? etc
ReplyDeleteThese people are scary nuts.
ReplyDelete