Hebrew inscription on a parapet fragment from the Temple Mount, reading "To the place of trumpeting…"

This stone block fell from the parapet at the southwestern corner of the Temple Mount to the street below during the destruction of the temple in the year 70 CE. Its inscription, "to the place of trumpeting ... ," indicates that it marked the place a priest would stand to signal by trumpet blasts the beginning and end of the Sabbath. The third word is cut off, but can be completed in two fashions: to "announce" the beginning and end of the Sabbath, or to "separate" between holy and mundane. "above the roof of the priests' chambers, at the point where it was the custom for one of the priests to stand and to give notice, by sound of trumpet, in the afternoon of the approach, and of the following evening of the close, of every seventh day, announcing to the people the respective hours for ceasing work and for resuming their labours." (Flavius Josephus, Jewish War, IV, xii, 12)