Monday, April 22, 2019

Israel Echoes From Zion!

I’m done dreaming of Moshiach (Messiah) because Israel’s 2019 election result has ushered in a new reality. 13 of the seats to the far right (in the chart below) are religious parties that represent a growing trend in Israel politics. Further, the New Right party of Naftali Bennett closely missed the voter threshold, all their votes, which otherwise would have obtained 4 seats, were wasted. Imagine in the next election another 4 seats to the right wing, conservative religious parties will be delivered simply because demographically more young voters will be from this block. Then, the combined strength of the far right religious parties will be at least 25 seats as opposed to the 21 they just obtained.

Israel's 2019 balance of power

One of the most intriguing pre-election party battles was won by Bezalel Smotrich during the formation of the Right Union. Naftali Bennett abdicated to his New Right party so, Bezalel beat the old guard National Union, incorporated Kahanists and engraved clarity to this party’s future. His execution was swift and very impressive. With a Right Union party in place, chances are good that the next generation of young voters will significantly boost its numbers at the next election. Of the 25 religious conservative seats, I expect Right Union could obtain 9 or 10 seats making them the largest conservative, religions right wing party.

Three well ordered events must occur in order that millions of Jews and hundreds of millions of Christians can realize their dreams of Moshiach. Think of these events as keys that unlock the great mystery, the one which the world has been waiting. But, I am not writing of mystery, instead I am writing of fact that Israeli society is becoming more religious and that the religious tend to vote for religious, conservative right wing politicians.

The first of these three events is underway. It occurs through the realignment of Israel’s political democracy through the Religious Ministry. The minister is responsible, in part for appointing the nations 300+ Rabbis who obtain their life-time nominations by a nationally representative electoral process. The regime is as old as the state of Israel, as are some of its appointees, but revival of its cultural and strategic importance make it the perfect vehicle for national religious, political revolution. Modern, qualified Rabbi’s being appointed to replace the old guard carry with them the burning torches of their constituents. Further, their group political empowerment is a short legislative bridge to self-determination and governmental representation in the form of Israel’s first upper house, the equivalent of its House of Lords.

With a Rabbinical upper-house Israel will restore its sovereign identity, once known as a Sanhedrin and with it the capacity to rule in all matters of law, both secular and religious. For the first time in thousands of years Israel will be in a position to converge laws, not because secular law can be invented, but because religious law, under such a recognized legal-religious body can ultimately adapt to unify the principles of its national law for all Israel.

The second of these three events, can only take place after Israel’s Upper House of elected Rabbi’s is legislated and Rabbi’s are seated as the nations representatives. As this Upper House realizes its popular, cultural, religious and spiritual duty it will be empowered to fulfil its legal responsibility to re-appoint the nations sovereign. In addition to the national Prime Minister and its President, the royal house of David and the appointment of a King over all Israel will finally be in the hands of the nation to realize its full identity. Israel’s land law’s and much of its present legislative processes are enhanced by the appointment of its Sovereign and only its Upper House of religious representatives has the power to ratify this appointment.

In the final step, with the appointment of the nations King and the re-establishment of the royal house all of the ceremonial functions of the King can be realized. This is expected to be an enormous boost to the nations constituents in spiritual and economic terms, particularly as a result of tourism and related industries that flow benefits to citizens of the country. The King with support of the nations President, Prime Minister, Cabinet and Upper and Lower Houses will then, by popular demand oversee the rebuilding of the third and final temple in Jerusalem.

These are the reasons I no-longer dream of Moshiach, because I am close enough to Israel and its people to see and know that the nation is well on the way to realizing its cultural destiny. And if you think some may derail this train, like they did at Gush Katif, think again, Israel is bound to this cultural and indigenous destiny, its only a matter of time.

Saturday, April 6, 2019

2900 Year Jerusalem Mystery Solved!

The most significant and immovable artifact at the City of David has been protected by a steel locked box since its discovery in 2011. Understanding its origin, especially in context of its location has been aided by the recent discovery of a small 2600 year old seal that once belonged to a man named Nathan, servant of King Josiah, mentioned in 2 Kings 23:11 of the Bible.  However, the geophysical location of the artifact and recorded events surrounding Nathan, servant of King Josiah are trans-formative in resolving the artifacts interpretation. Three verses of chapter 23 are pivotal:

23:4 And the king commanded Hilkiah the high priest and the priests of the second rank and the guards of the threshold, to take out of the Temple of the Lord all the utensils that were made for the Baal and for the asherah, and for the entire host of the heaven, and he burnt them outside Jerusalem in the plains of Kidron, and he carried their ashes to Bethel.

23:11 And he abolished the horses that the kings of Judah had dedicated to the sun, from the entrance of the house of the Lord until the chamber of Nathan-melech the eunuch who was in the outskirts, and he burnt the sun chariots with fire.

23:15 And also the altar that was in Bethel, the high place that Jeroboam the son of Nebat-who caused Israel to sin-had made, also that altar and the high place he demolished, and he burnt the high place; he pulverized it and burnt the asherah.

Eli Shukron, the archaeologist who discovered the protected artifact, known as a standing stone or matzevah was prompted by a question; “Eli- is there any chance the stone was from Genesis (the one Jacob erected)?”

As you can see @7:40 minutes into the video Eli answered; "..yes, maybe Jacob was here, but this is not the stone of Jacob because we are talking about Jerusalem".

300 years before King Josiah and Nathan - melech the eunuch, King Jeroboam erected the altar at Bethel on the border of the territory of Benjamin and Ephraim. During the ceremony a prophet was sent to announce its future destruction by a man named Josiah. These events of chapter 23 capture the moment the prophecy came true when King Josiah destroyed the altar of Jeroboam at Bethel (north of Jerusalem). Ever since this time, the location of the original Beit El, of Jacob has been lost to the nation of Israel.

Jeroboam's prevailing geologic continues to plague the modern nation. Eli, like many others is confused because modern Bethel (~10 km north of Jerusalem) considered to be named by Jacob is not the location Jacob erected the standing stone at the place he named Beit El. Miraculously, the recent discovery of Nathan - melech the eunuch's seal comes to resolve this longstanding error.

We read in 23:11 that the chamber of Nathan -melech was on the outskirts of the temple, therefore  it may have been the very location his seal was discovered in the Givati excavation shown @0:37 into the next video.

Remarkably, the dispute between Bethel north of Jerusalem and Beit El of Jerusalem is now resolved because the only reference in the entire 24 books of the Bible that can possibly have resolved this conflict is verse 23:4. Indisputably this is the area outside Jerusalem (the tiny ancient city on Mount Moriah) and the plains of the Kidron Valley, where the wooden idols were burned to ashes and Beit El, the place where the ashes were carried and deposited. Hilkiah the High priest did not walk, ride, drive or fly to Bethel ~10km north of Jerusalem to deposit these ashes and that is in direct opposition to Eli Shukron's denial that the standing stone is Jacob's Beit El in Jerusalem.

To this day, the matzevah or standing stone of Jacob remains locked in its steel box and each time I think of it I'm inspired to continue my struggle to correct the long, perplexing, disinformation campaign Jeroboam imposed on Israel, which was confounded by the prophet who came from Judah, who was mauled to death by a lion that was waiting on the road with a donkey - wow!

The matzevah of Jacob

Monday, March 11, 2019

City of David is Zion - What is the Temple Mount?

Altar built on a bedrock platform or foundation
The first temple was constructed by King Solomon around the co-ordinates of the sacrificial altar King David had built on Aravnah's (Ornan's) land. On the day of its dedication the priests carried the Ark of the Covenant from the City of David, which is Zion (1 Kings 8:1) where it had been located for 37 years. Some 400 years later, the first temple was destroyed and the Jewish people exiled to Persia. To this day Purim, as it became known is the annual festival that celebrates the hidden miracle in which the exiled Jewish people were saved from certain destruction.

Following the original Purim festivities, Jews were granted permission to return to Jerusalem to reconstruct their temple that had been destroyed 70 years earlier in the year 423 BCE . Haggai was a prophet of the Persian exile who foresaw the first temple reconstruction and final temple building. (2:9) The glory of this later house will be greater than the former said the Lord of hosts; and in this place I will grant peace. He had announced his prophecy and when King Darius II of Persia was appointed, the previous vassal Zerubavel oversaw the Jewish return to Jerusalem and their second attempt to rebuild. Only some Jewish leaders returned, but Haggai also foresaw something that troubled him...

In the shortest chapters of the Bible, Haggai enters and exits with few words. In his rare prophecy God asked Haggai to direct two questions of Jewish law at the priests who were to serve in the reconstructed temple. Their answer was deemed incorrect. Strangely, these educated priests and leaders of the Jewish people were very familiar with Jewish law and all were focused on locating the place of the altar from where coordinates for the temple reconstruction would be obtained.

Bedrock foundation for Altar of Zion in City of David
Texts also recall that the skull of Aravnah, the Jebusite king who sold his threshing floor to King David was found underneath the altar by Haggai. It had previously been found by King Hezekiah who wrongly inculcated the month of Nissan to purify the nation after they discovered the skull under the altar, almost 125 years prior to Haggai's prophecy. Why was this skull still present under the altar and how did it fit with Jewish law that the altar be constructed on a raised bedrock foundation?

While the temple was still in ruins, the priests had offered sacrifices on the foundation rock where they deemed the first temple altar to have been 70 years prior. In this context, Haggai's ongoing prophecy (2:14) is puzzling. "Such is the people and such is the nation before Me, says the Lord; and such is every work of their hands; and whatever they offer there is defiled. Why is this place (2:9) of the future temple and "there" (2:14) of the first temple singled out in these two verses?

Prophet Zechariah was a contemporary of Haggai and wrote (Zech 8:7.2) So said the Lord of Hosts: I am jealous for Zion with great jealousy, and with great fury I am jealous for her. I will return to Zion, and I will dwell in the midst of Jerusalem; and Jerusalem shall be called the city of truth, and the mount of the Lord of Hosts [shall be called] the holy mountain.

Zechariah's prophecy exposed God's jealously for Zion, Samuel's earlier prophecies and writings had declared Zion is the City of David. So, why is "this place", of Haggai's final temple distinguished from "there" of the first temple reconstruction - will they be the same place? Bible texts unequivocally state Zion is the city of David. However, the altar at the City of David is not at the location of King David's altar on the temple mount of the first and reconstructed (second) temple.

Lower Mount Moriah - City of David is Zion
The Temple Mount and City of David are different locations on Mount Moriah. Surely Zion defines "this place" as the location, the one to which God wants to return? We also know that God's presence, in the temple rests above the Ark (cover) of the Covenant and the above the Altar. Must God's presence in the final temple be at Zion, which is the City of David, the midst of Jerusalem and not "there" the place at which every offer is "defiled"? The tension that exists between these locations gives rise to Haggai's prophecy as he tries to warn the headstrong priests, but his few words fell on deaf ears and Zechariah's prophecy reinforced the momentum of Zrubavel's appointment and the ensuing ceremonial dedication.

Haggai and King Hezekiah encountered the skull of Aruvnah, both realized something about the altar of King David was not quite right. At these crucial moments neither was able to effect change, they succumbed to the status-quo, but for the final construction we will be more careful.

Wednesday, February 6, 2019

Jacob And His Trees

Covenant of Jacob - Standing Stone or Matzevah at Beit El, Bethel, Ancient Jerusalem

For 39 years the progenitor Israel lived with a gnawing frustration because the covenant he, as Jacob made at Beit El to build the House of God had not been fulfilled. Confounding events had distracted him from meeting his obligation.  After a successful 20 year exile he returned to his homeland to fulfill his covenant, but was delayed by the burden of his cattle, the idols his entourage carried, the rape of his daughter and massacre in revenge, the death of his mother, the death of his favored wife, the sale of his favored son Joseph into slavery, by his brothers and their living lie to Jacob.

Ultimately his family’s exile to Egypt, where they were finally reunified with Joseph must have been a bittersweet 17 year end to Jacob’s life. On his deathbed, he struggled to express the vision of his yet unfulfilled covenant, perhaps still hoping to motivate his children to fulfill it. Instead Jacob died hearing their acknowledgement that they too would unify their Creator and with that he bestowed his final blessings to them.

When you make a covenant with your one and only God, there is no escaping it. There is no other god who can cancel or adjust it, that constitution is expressed in the continuity of Jewish law. Jacob memorialized his covenant by setting and anointing a standing stone in Luz, which he renamed Beit El, that marked the place of his obligation. By his default, to build the House of God his unfulfilled covenant became the cornerstone of his nations indigenous memory.

The essential backstory to Jacobs yet unfulfilled covenant is less well known. Before his final exile to Egypt he gathered Acacia seeds, some say the Acacia trees that had originally been planted by Abraham and Jacob south of Jacob’s standing stone at Beit El. Nurturing these trees was Jacob’s contemplation, to provide the wood to construct and fulfill his covenant at the place Malchi-tzedek - High Priest of Salem had practiced, Abraham had offered his son Isaac as a sacrifice and Jacob had set his standing stone on Jerusalem’s Mount Moriah. When Jacob left the land of his inheritance, he took the Acacia seeds with him and, not to give up on his indigenous dream he planted them when they settled in Egypt.

210 years after Jacob’s exile his disenfranchised nation were thrust out of Egypt. Before departing some realized the contemplation of their forefather Jacob was about to come true. Tantalizingly, they anticipated returning to Mount Moriah, they felled the trees prepared the wood and took it from Egypt to be used to complete Jacob’s covenant and vision. But, Israel’s circuitous route back to their land took 40 more years. Along the journey Jacob’s trees were used to construct a temporary sanctuary to house the Ark of the Holy Covenant and offer sacrifices. The sanctuary was deconstructed and reconstructed at 42 locations before the nation was ready to arrive.

The seeds Jacob took with him did not merely provide wood, they also implanted a will, in the national psyche that had taken root with his family to fulfill his covenant. When they carried the wood out of Egypt into the desert to worship The God that had saved them from tyrant Pharaohs they were sentimentally expressing Jacobs Beit El contemplation. But, when Joshua finally led each of the tribes into battle to conquer their allotted land, there were two places he was unable to dislodge the occupant enemy. One was the territory of modern Gaza, which is the territory of Dan and the other Mount Moriah, which straddles territory on the southern boundary of Benjamin and northern boundary of Judah. Emorites and Jebusites had constructed massive fortifications on the eastern slope of Mount Moriah that concealed the bedrock, which in light of recent archaeology is Jacob’s Beit El to hide features of the earliest temple Israel’s ancestors had once developed and used.

It took another 300 years before King David mustered a small force that penetrated the fortification by scaling the water channel flowing out of the Gihon Spring and a bedrock fissure. The young Kings forces successfully occupied the lower section of Mount Moriah, but did not dislodge previous occupants of the mountain including the Jebusite King. King David recovered the Ark of the Holy Covenant that had been stolen by the Philistines of Gaza, but abandoned by them because of their superstitions. He temporarily housed it on the mountain until a permanent temple could be built. Progressively King David established Mount Moriah as his base for unifying the administration of justice over all Israel’s tribes.

During his tenure, the King struggled to find the Mount Moriah site that was destined for the altar of the permanent temple. The exact location was not obvious, but the prerequisite, by Jewish law had to be akeida - the site of the binding of Isaac. Despite all of his efforts, he was unable to locate it. Toward the end of his life, under political pressure for his moral ineptitude he dispatched his loyal general on an ill fated census of the nation. A plague ravaged the nations north killing 70,000, as it approached Jerusalem the King witnessed the angel of death standing on Mount Moriah with its sword drawn over the lower slope, which was Jerusalem at that time. The nations prophet declared the site suitable for an altar. King David who publicly sought forgiveness and the tribal leaders whose tribes were being ravaged, purchased the site from the Jebusite King. King David brought his sacrifices and the plague stopped. The event that unified the tribes was soon forgotten, but the location of the Kings altar was not. Finally King David’s blueprint, for the construction of Jerusalem’s first permanent temple were completed and made ready for his son King Solomon to construct.

Notwithstanding the joyful pomp and ceremony at the inauguration of Jerusalem’s first permanent temple, Jacob’s Beit El location had been lost. It was inadvertently re-discovered by King Hezekiah’s builders during his Gihon Spring tunnel reconstruction, but it was quickly and perfectly re-buried and preserved. It was rediscovered by Eli Shukron, in the City of David on the eastern slope of Mount Moriah 3533 after Jacob’s exile in 2010.

Sunday, December 23, 2018

The long search

The Bible recounts that moments before Jacob’s death he invoked his redeeming angel (Vayechi 48:16) and blessed Joseph’s sons, his grandsons Efraim and Menashe. He adopted them and in doing so bestowed the double blessing on Joseph, first born to his first love, wife Rachel.

The Zohar asks - why did they deserve to be blessed? And answers because Joseph preserved the sign of the holy covenant by not allowing himself to be seduced (by evil). The mystery of faith is a covenant with My chosen (righteous) one [1:231a] alluding to King David. He finds pleasure together with the souls of the righteous (Israel) and will not enter Jerusalem below until Israel enters the city. The world was not created until He took a certain stone -Foundation Stone, central point of the whole world. That stone, I set up as a pillar (matzevah) to be a house of God (Genesis 28:22). I am sending an angel before you.

Jacob took 12 stones of that place and they become one

(Vayechi 49:1) Jacob called for his sons and said, "Gather and I will tell you what will happen to you at the end of days". [1:234b] "Gather" - that I may tell you - "Ve-agidah", the mystery of wisdom! Why the mystery of wisdom? Because the word contains (g)imel followed by (d)alet, though sometimes (y)ud intervenes. He sought to reveal Israel's future, but his end of days vision dwindled.

Jacob was about to reveal that his stone-pillar would locate the permanent temple he had committed to build, but he couldn't explain what he saw. How do we know this? Because the non-incidental prophet Gad, also spelled (g)imel (d)alet connected him to this same mystery of wisdom. Some 670 years after Jacob, Gad authorized King David and all Israel's tribal leaders to locate an altar, on Mount Moriah at a different place than the place Jacob erected his stone-pillar. This confronting fact disturbed Jacob's vision.

The deeper mystery connected Efraim and brother Menashe to the northern tribes, collectively named Israel. They vehemently resisted re-locating the temporary temple from Shilo in Efraim's territory, where it had been abandoned to Jerusalem on the southern border of Benjamin's territory with Judah. When a plague killed 70,000 northern Israelite's a short-lived reprieve led them to unify and accept Gad's prophetic house of God relocation from the neck to the head of Mount Moriah.

Rivalry between Judah and Joseph (Efraim) over Benjamin would eventually lead to the destruction of two temples at Gad's location. Jacob saw beyond these destruction's, but the perpetual denial by Joseph and his brothers, including their silencing Benjamin about their kidnapping and selling Joseph disturbed Jacob's foretelling.

In 2008 the Hebrew year 5768, Jacob's stone-pillar was rediscovered at its location on Mount Moriah. It had been purposely buried, preserved for more than 3700 years. This time there will be no destruction.

Wednesday, November 7, 2018

The Place Jacob Stumbled and Became Israel

Of 79,847 words in the Hebrew Bible "va-yi[ph][g]ah" is used once to describe the manner in which Jacob came to a certain "place". It is also used once in the Book of Samuel and three times in the first book of Kings. In the latter books it verbalizes the murder of priests and retribution against a traitor. So, how does the murder of priests by Do'eg, who became King David's conniving, ruthless teacher and retribution metered by Ben'ayahu ben Yehoiada, for the King relate to Jacob's experience at the place?

The verb "[ph]-[g]ah" means to encounter, meet or reach, perhaps encounter (as in strike down) can relate to killing or murder. However, because a softer verb was not chosen commentators interpret this long memory, encoded into the Bible's Hebrew words as if Jacob came upon, fell upon, collided with, or stumbled onto the place.

Regular readers of this blog will know my view that the standing stone or matzevah in ancient Jerusalem's temple zero complex (see image below) is the one Jacob erected the morning after his "va-yi[ph][g]ah" experience which was followed, that night by his famous 'stairway-to-heaven' dream.

Four room temple complex on Upper Ridge above the Gihon Spring
Of the four rooms discovered in the temple complex, on the eastern face of Mount Moriah the bedrock at the western end of room 2 drops to a low point around 1 meter above the ground. This apparently natural feature outlined in red and immediately further west in green (in the images below) illustrates the fall of bedrock toward the ground level bedrock. The standing stone (also in the images below) is not depicted in room 2 (above) to illustrate that it was erected on top of the ground level bedrock well after this temple complex had already been constructed.

Looking west into Room 2

Only the raised bedrock platform at the rear (west) end of room 3 was purposely left in place when the original constructors shaped the bedrock into these four rooms. The image (below) of room 3 bedrock floor contrasts the liquids channel (left of image) carved into the bedrock floor from retained (top rear) raised altar platform. This serves to emphasize the purpose of the construction as a temple complex from the outset.

Room 3 altar platform left in place when rooms bedrock was removed to shape rooms

The man-made-wall in the background, west of the green outlined bedrock (below) was dated to the time of King Hezekiah by various archaeologists. Around 1000 years earlier, toward the end of the middle Bronze Age the man-made-wall did not exist, but the bedrock features of rooms 1,2,3 and 4 did. We know that because pottery artifacts discovered in passages immediately east and north of these rooms are dated to the middle bronze age and chisel markings are indicative of that time.

Matzevah or standing stone at the rear, west end of room 2
Further west of the man-made-wall bedrock continues under the wall, as seen in the image below. In the middle Bronze Age, before the man-made-wall was built bedrock access to and from the west of the temple complex would have been a more gentle access route. The grade of the east facing slope seen in the following image supports the idea of gradual access.

The man-made-wall  (City Wall in image below) approximately demonstrates the relative position of the four room temple complex on the Upper ridge in context to the City Wall at the site of the excavations. It also illustrates the proximity of the Upper Ridge temple complex to the water of the Gihon Spring in the Kidron Valley below.

For those who are familiar with the Bible story of Jacob: On the run from his brother, Jacob made his way to Mount Moriah (Genesis 28:11), the holy place of his ancestors where his father was once offered as a sacrifice by his grandfather whose homeland Jacob was about to leave behind. When the sun set he stumbled upon the bedrock and fell into room 2 of the temple complex. That night he packed stones around his head, which he took from room 3 and exhausted he fell asleep. In the morning when he awoke, he erected the stone and anointed it (Genesis 28:18) and after twenty years in exile he returned back to it (Genesis 35:14). I maintain that this is the place Jacob was seeking and this is the place Israel is still seeking, perhaps one day we will find it!

Wednesday, October 10, 2018

Myopic Archaeological Reporting

A major disagreement between archaeological giants over a 2008 discovery at the City of David, Jerusalem remains unresolved. The modern equivalents of Macalister and Duncan, Reich and Shukron, who excavated sections of the lower and upper ridges near the Gihon Spring remain ~1000 years apart in their time estimates for a critically important upper ridge discovery. By professional standards its a serious issue that could eventually backfire on Israel's Antiquities Authority.

Its not unusual for archaeologists to challenge each other with evidence based theories including at  the Gihon Spring. Recently Dr. Joe Uziel discovered evidence that presented a similar time conflict. Under the north-eastern corner stone of the Bronze age citadel construction adjacent to the Gihon Spring, seeds were carbon dated by Weizmann Institute to the Iron age. The seeds were presumed to be in their original location, but if they had been washed under the corner stone, in a prior rain-storm the arguments over Iron or Bronze age dating would be futile.

To elucidate the futility, myopic archaeological reporting is often contained to single fragments of evidence that draw inferences absent of broader context discoveries found in proximity. For example Jerusalem's oldest constructed cave was probably a mansion carved into the east face of Mount Moriah, south of the upper Gihon Pool.

Parker and Vincent Excavation ~1910
Early Bronze Age Cave (2018)

Further up the eastern face, a tomb containing ~4000 year old sophisticated tomb pottery was discovered by Parker-Vincent. Importantly this early Bronze Age tomb pottery dates Mount Moriah's first permanent population to a similar time in which the cave home on the eastern face would have been in use.

From Ronny Reich's book - Excavating the City of David: Where Jerusalem's History Began

The Pottery Artifacts from the Rockefeller Museum in Jerusalem
Direct evidence does not link the tomb pottery to the cave, but both were sophisticated developments of that time. The cave would have been constructed by skilled laborers and the pottery by refined artisans indicating the importance of the individuals to whom these discoveries were once attributed. Leading archaeologist Hillel Geva made it clear that Mount Moriah was sparsely populated until much later periods when permanent construction on the mountain expanded from around 3800 years ago, around the time of Biblical Abraham.

One of the most compelling observations echos a ziggurat like stairway the lower sections having been partly reassembled with steel staircase. Immediately adjacent, north of the cave, the base of the stairway was once quarried in sloping bedrock, but today it is a sheer-rock-cut-face that reshaped the natural slope of the bedrock to displace or destroy the arrangements that once provided gradual stepped-access from lower to upper ridge.

Stairway view bottom to top (looking west)
Stairway view top to bottom (looking east) - see video below

The slope may have first been reshaped to include steps for easier access on the ~30 meter rise (see profile image below) from the lower rock shelf, at the cave's natural entrance to the stairs leading to the high ridge. Interestingly, the lower section of stairs would have once landed on the east face of Mount Moriah, as it falls to the Kidron Valley, but the dramatic absence at the now sheer-rock-cut-face appears related to the quarrying that ultimately formed the large impassable void of the Upper Gihon Pool (see image below).

Profile slice through Mount Moriah looking north.
In 2008 Eli Shukron broke through a false wall on the upper ridge and discovered that the stairway led directly to a sacrificial altar of a significant pre-Solomon temple complex. Soft sand filled the entire upper ridge spaces between the false wall on the east (side of Kidron Valley) and the western bedrock, below the city wall. Thousands of years before Eli's breakthrough, the temple complex had been cleaned of artifacts and purposefully buried, a fact that has not been officially revealed. Below, the four numbered rooms, notably #1 and #3 have short passages connecting these rooms with the upper section of the ridge as it makes its way higher and to the west.

On the eastern bedrock, below the temple complex middle Bronze Age artifacts were discovered by Shukron and previous archaeologists, but several rooms built against the city wall (see image above) contained artifacts that were dated to the Iron Age.

The image above illustrates how access through the rear passage of room #1 of the temple complex led to the bedrock behind the wall. When the temple complex was excavated, several Iron Age artifacts were found in the passages and caused Ronny Reich to firmly date the temple complex to the Iron Age. However, it is evident these artifacts could have moved. The basement of the Iron Age rooms (above image) terminated on the bedrock as it descends east and like so many cavernous basements in and around the old city of Jerusalem the contents on the bedrock found the tunnel of room #1 where the Iron Age contents of the house slipped into and filled the space of the tunnel.

Based on the above,the definitive statements by Ronny Reich, as seen in the video below would therefore be an example of myopic archaeology. Eli Shukron has made public statements that the temple complex is a Bronze Age construct in direct opposition.

I'll leave it to you the reader to decide, which version is more likely just keep in mind that the standing stone or matzevah in room #2 (seen below) is most likely a relic from 3800 years ago, the the time of Israel's Biblical fathers, as such it is more likely to fit the context that supports the narrative of Eli Shukron.

Room #2 matzevah or standing stone is not a grave marker

Sunday, August 12, 2018

Jerusalem's 'Temple Zero' Predicament!

The southern room - animal processing and grain press

The matzevah of Jacob

Sunday, July 29, 2018

Stop the "fake news"!

Maison d'Abraham opposite BethEl in the reclaimed City of David.

Monday, May 28, 2018

A Shaft Tomb or Deep Well Preceded Jerusalem's Upper Gihon Pool

Honed bedrock entry to Shaft Tomb
Shaft tombs were commonly used during the Middle Bronze Age to bury the dead, including in and around Jerusalem. They were generally constructed as a vertical shaft, cut into bedrock leading to a chamber at the bottom of the shaft where bones and valuable possessions of individuals or family members were laid to rest. Important people were buried in prominent locations where they had once lived, the scale of their burial commensurate.

Cylindrical Shaft Tomb
Prayer at the graveside of those who had progressed to afterlife may have been practiced similar to Jewish  religion and tradition in Israel today. Cemeteries from this period are found scattered through Israel like the one in Michmash from the Middle Bronze age. Generally the tombs were constructed cylindrical, but sometimes rectangular or irregular shapes were built. Over extended periods of tens or hundreds of years populations at specific locations waxed and waned. Because of famine, pestilence, disease or wars shaft-tombs were often abandoned, which exposed the contents to vandalism.

Once tombs had been vandalized and emptied and with the passage of time as local inhabitants lost touch with lore of the deceased, they may have been used for other purposes. One such example could be the Round Chamber (named by lead archaeologist Ronny Reich) of the Upper Gihon Pool at the City of David, Jerusalem.

Upper Gihon Pool and Round Chamber in front of image (camera facing south)
The Upper Gihon Pool is immediately south of  the Gihon Spring, from where it once received its water. The eastern rock-cut face, which is substantially lower than the other faces marked the pools maximum potential water line.  Today the sunken walkway sits in the pool immediately adjacent (south) of the Round Chamber resembling the remnant of a cylindrical shaft.  The top of the Round Chamber appears roughly honed suggesting its original deep cylindrical shaft preceded cutting rock away from it to form the large cavity of the Upper Gihon Pool. Since the lower height of the eastern face is the maximum water line, it can be concluded most of the cavity area was quarried for some other purpose.

Southern face of rock cut Upper Gihon Pool (camera facing south-east)
The southern rock cut face (seen above) of the Upper Gihon Pool expansion follows the original slope of the mountain as it falls east toward the Kidron valley.  The cavity bedrock once filled the entire pool area. The Shaft tomb or deep cylindrical well of the Round Chamber was first cut from untouched bedrock. Later more rock was cut and removed to form the present cavity of the Upper Gihon Pool.

Yardstick in Round Chamber expanded in the direction of camera facing north-east
The yardstick in the image above illustrates the height from the bottom of the Round Chamber to the top of the northern rock cut face. The north-eastern Tunnel III (considered to be Middle Bronze Age) is visible and leads directly to the Gihon Spring. It is possible it once formed a Shaft Tomb burial chamber prior to widening the south-east side of the Round Chamber and the addition of steps into the pool (as can be seen in the map below).

Round Chamber - Shaft Tomb and east facing burial chamber

Entrance to the northern Tunnel IV in the image (bellow) is considered an Iron Age addition and may have been part of Iron Age efforts to dam water for storage within a few hundred years of the construction of the Siloam (Hezekiah) Tunnel.

View north-east to the expanded corner of the Round Chamber
In a previous post I identified the "other purpose" of the quarrying effort in the Upper Gihon Pool was entirely political. Specifically to stop Israel's access and to obfuscate the Middle Bronze Age, holy temple complex on the high, east facing ridge facing east, looking over the Upper Gihon Pool.


Pharmacovigilance Manager

Industry Competitive
04 Feb 2019
04 Mar 2019
Georgia Walden
Contract Type
Full Time
A Fantastic opportunity for an experienced Pharmacovigilance Manager has become available within a leading Global Pharmaceutical company based in Buckinghamshire. As the Pharmacovigilance Manager you will act as the Regional lead for all Drug Safety and Pharmacovigilance activities within the UK. You will be accountable for ensuring safety activities are compliant to UK regulations and monitor domestic Adverse Drug Reactions from locally marketed and clinical products both directly and through the management of 3rd parties.

This position would suit an experienced Pharmacovigliance professional who can work independently with the ability to lead projects as well as supervise and train junior staff members.

Your duties as the Pharmacovigilance Manager will be varied however the key duties and responsibilities are as follows:

1. Individual Case Safety Reports ( ICSRs ) - You will review and triage Adverse Events ( AEs ) and prepare reports to be submitted to the MHRA, ensuring compliance is maintained. You will ensure you keep up-to-date on product knowledge and perform local literature reviews.

2. Development / Periodic Safety Update Reports ( DSUR / PSUR ) - You will provide input for the UK region to assist with PSUR and DSUR reporting as and when required to ensure Global reports are updated. You will also liaise closely with Regulatory Affairs teams to ensure Reference Safety Information is current and correct.

3. 3rd Party Vendors - You will negotiate and agree Pharmacovigliance Vendor Service Agreements with external suppliers while ensuring current vendors are reviewed and maintained. You will be expected to manage your vendors and ensure that their reports are reviewed to maintain compliance. You will provide training where required.

4. You will ensure that the Regional Pharmacovigilance Lead is provided oversight of the local Pharmacovigilance activities. You will ensure that SOPs are maintained and updated and author procedures where required.

To be successful in your application to this exciting opportunity as the Pharmacovigilance Manager we are looking to identify the following on your profile and past history:

1. Relevant degree in a Life Sciences discipline (e.g. Biology, Chemistry, Pharmacology, Toxicology etc.) in addition to extensive Pharmacovigilance experience, ideally with experience of UK local authorities such as the MHRA.

2. Proven industry experience of Pharmacovigliance case reporting including Adverse Drug Reactions (ADRs), Adverse Events (AEs) and ICSRs in addition to experience of ensuring Pharmacovigilance compliance.

3. A working knowledge and practical experience with managing 3rd Party Vendors would be beneficial to your applications as well as experience of supporting local Responsible Person for Pharmacovigliance or QPPV.

Key Words: Pharmacovigilance | Drug Safety | ICSR | PSUR | DSUR | ADR | AE | PV | Pharmacovigilance Compliance | QPPV | RPPV | MHRA | UK

Similar jobs

Similar jobs


• A. Mª Montes Cepeda
Palabras clave: miocardial infarction, electrocardiography, dogs

In this work, we have studied the experimental myocardium heart-attack in dogs, for which we began by performing a surgical acclusion of the coronary arteries. We divided the animals into three separate groups. In the first group, a ligature of the left coronary arterywas performed was the branch, interventricularis paraconalis, in the second group a ligature in the branch of the left coronary artery and the in the third group a ligature in the branch circunflexus of the right coronary artery. Previously, the catheterization of the crotid artery had been carried out on all the animals with the objetive of easily obtanining blood samples. Blood samples and electiocardiograms are taken before the occlusion and 4, 8, 12, 24 hours and 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 days after the ligature. From the studies ans evaluations carriedout, we can deduce that a leukocitosis originates 4 hours after the ischemia and which reaches its maximum at 12 and 24 hours, with 29050 +- 3410,82 leukocytes per cubic millimetre. Other observations which we have been able to verify, were the changes which occred in the leukocyte formula, underlining the neutrophilia as one of the most important with a clear swing to the left. This neutrophilia appears few hours after the heart-attack, a recovery towards normal figures ocurring after 6 days. In groups 1 and 2, the partial presure of carbon anhidride (pCO2) increases in a significant way with respect to figures taken before the animals were operated on. The alkaline reserve suffers a drop a few hours after the coronary occlusion, then increases gradually during the following days. The partial oxigen pressure suffers a slight decrease in every group. The most notable variations are in enzymatic activity. The CK-MB which initially give us a value of 52,8 +- 6,48 and 66,7 +- 4.65 Ul/L., rises rapidly after 4 hours reaching maximum activity after between 12 and 24 hours with figuures of 2312,9 +- 508,37 Ul/L. The same thing happens with the LDH and the GOT-ASAT, an increase ocurring after a few hours reaching its maximum after between 12 and 48 hours, leter recovering after around 6 days. With regard to the serie ferogram, we must underline the obvious increase, statiscallly checked, which occurred in the albumins, obtaining a slow but progressive decrease in them, reaching its minimun in between 4 and 5 days, from which time its graual increase begins. The globulines alpha2 also suffer variations since after 24 hours a increase begins which reaches its maximum limitin between 3 and 4 days after the attack, then slowly decreasing again. In relation to the zinc and copper determined, a slight hipercupremia and hipozincemia was obteined respectively although thid was not a dominant feature in all the groups. As for the most obvious changes in the electrocardiographic study, we would like to point out the rapid appearance (after 4 hours) of alterations in rhythm and cardiac conduction with a tachycardia wich reached the order of 200-210 p.p.m. reaching its maximum 8-12 hours after ligature, then going down from 2 days onwards. Ventricular extrasystoles with VPC complexes appeared at this time just as sinusal-type blockages diding the course of 12 and 24 hours. The voltages of QRS and T waves were high. The typical heart-attack sings like uneven S-T segment T negative and Q deep were the obvious norms in all the recordings taken after ligature. In the histology study the canges in the cardiac tissue 4-8 hours after the ligature appearing were checked perivascular edema and congestion. Between 24 hours and 2 days , fibrolisis areas of hemorrhaging and inflamatory reaction in intrafibral areas appeared. After 2 and 3 days fibral breakdown, miocitolisis and necrobiosis, there are few collagen fibres with reticulina.

Biografía del autor/a

A. Mª Montes Cepeda
Cátedra de Patología General Médica y de la Nutrición Facultad de Veterinaria Universidad de Murcia
Resúmenes de TFG/TFM


Neuroscience Tag

No more price concessions! Tradeables are your secret weapon!

So what are tradeables?

Let’s take an airline as an example. In years gone by you bought a ticket and that was that. Today, we have to consider how much hold luggage, hand baggage, meals, how flexible the ticket is, penalties for changes, speedy boarding, allocated seats, airmiles payment and redemption, loyalty points and the list goes on.  Airlines were forced to change their pricing strategy because of market pressures introduced by the low-cost flyers.  Yet many businesses I talk to today stick to inflexible pricing strategies and then moan that their customers think they are too expensive.

Relationships matter

In the case of a one-off purchase, for example buying a car, the relationship element is less important than when we are dealing with a customer, supplier or third party over time.   In this case the relationship is just as important as the negotiation outcome itself. What’s at stake is future business, reputation and of course the ease of working together after the negotiation. The key error that most of us make is not spending enough time identifying our tradeables. As a result the relationship can suffer.

What neuroscience says…

Imagine you’re selling website design services, your tradeables might be licence fee, training, maintenance, guarantees, hosting, periodic upgrades, support etc.

Being clear about exactly what you’re selling puts you in a much stronger position if the customer demands a discount. Without tradeables you will either have to agree to a discount which will directly impact your bottom line, or you will have to say no, which risks spoiling the relationship and could even blow the deal.

Tradeables allow you to provide options for the other party. And neuroscience demonstrates that options create a sense of control which triggers the brain’s reward system. Whereas being told sorry, that’s our bottom line triggers our threat system and impacts the relationship negatively. In essence what you’re trying to achieve in any negotiation is to find something that will cost you little but is of significant value to them, and vice versa. Thus win-win!

All too often people believe they have no option other than to yield to price concessions - with a certain amount of resentment or resignation. However, careful consideration of your tradeables and pricing options provides a route to better outcomes and better relationships.

Give them options

We were recently negotiating with a large corporate to roll-out a global training programme. Their procurement department was trying to squeeze us on price. We knew if we started yielding, that would be the thin end of the wedge! So instead, we offered them a series of pre-prepared tradeables – online follow-up, certification, refresher webinars. So rather than saying no to a discount (which would have triggered a threat response), tradeables enabled us to demonstrate flexibility and a willingness to work with them to arrive at a mutually beneficial agreement.

All too often people believe they have no option other than to yield to price concessions – with a certain amount of resentment or resignation.  However, careful consideration of your tradeables and pricing options provides a route to better outcomes and better relationships.

The neuroscience of conflict and emotional regulation

I recently got into an argument with a family member and with Christmas coming up it reminded me that this is often a time for conflict. Understanding its scientific roots might help reduce its impact.

The part of the brain that is responsible for detecting threats is called the amygdala. In our hunter/gatherer days a threat would have been a large predator so this was critical for our survival.

Today physical threats are rare, however our brain hasn’t evolved at the same pace as our environment so our threat-detection circuitry is still highly attuned. Threats today are more likely to be to social threats, and the brain treats these in exactly the same way as physical threats.

Status threats

A particularly powerful threat is what David Rock of the NeuroLeadership Institute refers to as a status threat, where we feel someone is belittling us or trying to get one over on us.

We are particularly sensitive to status threats because in our hunter/gatherer days, being further up the hierarchy, meant more food and mating opportunities. Being lower down the pecking order meant less food and sex!

When somebody upsets us, this triggers a threat, and instantly engages our non-conscious brain in a freeze, fight, flight response.

A fight response will mean we argue back, verbally attacking them to re-assert our status. We must win the argument. We must be right!  We are hijacked by our emotions. Our non-conscious brain is doing what it is designed to do.

However once we’ve calmed down we may regret our hasty reaction. But by then it’s often too late – the damage has been done. The old adage ‘words said in anger are hard to take back’ bears much wisdom. As does the advice from my grandmother, ‘count to 10 dearest’.

If the perceived ‘attack’ is from our boss, fighting back might be detrimental to our career prospects! In this case our non-conscious brain might choose a freeze or flight response. This will mean we disengage, bear a grudge or harbour resentment – often ruminating for days about what we’d like to have said.

Whether at home or at work, managing social interactions is a fundamental necessity. It is one thing to do it when things are going well, but to do it in the face of conflict and adversity is the sign of real mastery

The brain is a social organ

According to neuroscientist, Matt Liebermann, rehearsing social interactions in our imagination is evolution’s way for us to get more skilled in being social. Our brain is a social organ and our human competitive advantage comes from collaboration with others.

So how do you best manage conflict? Firstly recognise that your brain is designed to react to emotional triggers. These are your survival instincts and, whether you like it or not, you will respond on autopilot with a fight, flight or freeze response.

The trick is to interrupt these automatic non-conscious responses by engaging the conscious brain. One technique for doing this is called labelling. This literally means trying to label the emotion we are feeling. In my case the emotion was humiliation. By forcing our conscious brain to identify our emotional state, this diverts attention and blood-flow away from our non-conscious brain.

Once I did this, I was able to actually feel empathy towards my antagonist and the poignant sting I’d felt greatly receded. This short-cuts pointless battling, entrenched opinions and the risk of escalation.

Performance review – love it or hate it?

The perfect opportunity to engage your people and boost performance?

Sadly, performance reviews are all too often the source of grief for employees and managers alike, focusing on missed targets and shortcomings.

If an employee anticipates an adversarial review, they’re going to waste a disproportionate amount of time preparing their defence and gathering supporting evidence. Stress and negativity trigger the freeze, fight, flight response, releasing cortisol and adrenaline which shuts down our ability to think clearly and relate positively to others.

If the review does go badly a demoralised employee can spend days recovering from the negative effects – clearly undesirable in any workplace, putting the brakes on organisational growth and learning.

Friend not foe

There is another way. A strengths-based approach to performance reviews focuses on successes, learnings and things to do differently next time. This triggers the brains reward circuitry, unleashing insight, innovation and interpersonal ability. Businesses that adopt this approach are generally fulfilling places to work where individuals grow and the organisation prospers.

The naysayers amongst you may be wondering ‘what if the employee has under performed and needs to be pulled up’. The truth is that we are all our own worst critics and your criticism will only rub salt into the wound.  Recent research by the Neuroleadership Institute shows that 17 times out of 20, negative feedback (even when positively intentioned) does more harm than good as employees attempt to justify themselves, make excuses and blame others.  All this causes resentment on both sides and undermines performance still further.

Focus on what's been achieved and the potential of the employee (rather than criticising their current performance)

Solutions not problems

Focusing on problems and underachievement only embeds the behaviours you are trying to change, thereby having the opposite effect than you intend. In contrast, a solution-focused approach looks at what has been achieved and focuses on the potential of the employee (rather than criticising their current performance). It is progressive and forward looking, which is energising for all involved and is important for developing new brain networks that encourage personal insight and change, and feed the brain’s reward circuits.

Create a culture where your people’s brains can function at their best.

The science of optimism and resilience – retrain your brain

Resilience: how to bounce back from setbacks

Some people seem to deal with whatever is thrown at them. Deadlines, back-to-back meetings, long hours, presentations, staff issues, family, etc, etc. They take it all in their stride.

Traditional thinking leads us to believe these lucky people are born with a natural ability to deal with stress – while the rest of us struggle to cope with life’s constant demands. For some, stress is just too overwhelming.

However, neuroscience shows us that learning to handle stress and develop an optimistic outlook is within everyone’s grasp because we all have the power to literally re-wire our brain.

The science of optimism and how it affects you

Just as the brain enables us to learn a musical instrument or a new sport, it can also become hardwired to respond automatically to negative stimuli. This unconsciously learnt thought process keeps us stuck in problem-mode and stops us even noticing possible solutions – the glass is always half empty.

Left to its own devices, our brain will focus on the negative. The brain’s threat detection centre is the amygdala. This evolutionary survival mechanism keeps us continually alert to potential danger. Unfortunately the result is that many of us carry a level of background anxiety and are permanently looking for things that could go wrong.

The destructive power of pessimism…

The results of stress and a pessimistic outlook on the human body are well documented. Impaired immunity, increased risk of heart disease, cancer and other diseases; prolonged stress literally kills brain cells. Stress also impacts our professional and personal relationships and overall quality of life.

The positive thinker is healthier, happier and lives longer

So how can we combat negative thinking?

One effective solution, offered by Shawn Achor, is ‘Three Good Things’: My phone alarm goes off at 7:15pm every evening and this is my cue to remember three good things that happened during the day. This habit trains my brain to scan for good news, rather than threats. If my family are present, we take turns at the dinner table to recite three good things. In a similar vein, at work, we start every team meeting asking each person for one piece of good news. Creating this cycle of positivity really does shift the mood, and gets the meeting off to a great start.

The reason employees often complain about feeling criticised is because their manager is unconsciously scanning for threats, looking for deficiencies and perceived shortcomings, instead of praising good work. My phone alarm comes in handy here as well – at 12pm everyday it tells me to ‘compliment someone’. Again, this creates a new habit, making not only the other person happy, but also creating positivity in me.

Being positive will strengthen your resilience to setbacks and enable you to achieve where others struggle. The good news is that it is entirely possible to switch your mindset – even if you’re currently buried deep-within negativity.

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Leadership mindset – are you a mulitplier or diminisher?

So who IS the smartest person in the room?

There is an excellent leadership lesson from the Victorian era, the story of when Winston Churchill’s Mother (Jennie Jerome) dined with rival British Prime Ministers, Gladstone and Disraeli, a week before the election. She compared them thus:

These two leaders went down in history, but as Jennie summarised with very contrasting personalities.

During their dinner Disraeli wanted to know everything about Jennie, steering the conversation toward her, asking her questions and listening intently to her responses. Naturally, she talked – we always feel good talking about ourselves!

Not surprisingly, Disraeli, the person who mastered the art of making other people feel important, won the election.

Research has established that leaders with a growth mindset (like Disraeli), or ‘multipliers’, get double the productivity out of their people compared with leaders with a fixed mindset (‘diminishers’), such as Gladstone.

Why is this?

In essence, multipliers foster an environment that shines the spotlight on their people, whereas diminishers prefer to shine the spotlight on themselves. A multiplier sees his or her job as developing the capability and intelligence of others, whereas a diminisher has to be seen as the smartest person in the room and their job is to control, manage and organise others.

Diminishers see intelligence as something fundamental about a person that can’t change much, which is consistent with psychologist Carol Dweck’s concept of fixed mindset. The diminisher’s logic is ‘if they don’t get it now, they never will so I’ll need to keep doing the thinking for everyone’. In a diminisher’s world there are very few people worth listening to!

‘Make ‘I don’t know’ a strategic part of your leadership. Uncertainty is here to stay. Acknowledging it is a show of strength.’

Tom Peters

So what are the lessons for business leaders?

Researcher Liz Wiseman summarises it succinctly:

‘Most diminishers have grown up praised for their personal intelligence and have moved up the management ranks. When they become ‘the boss’ they assume it’s their job to be the smartest and to manage a set of ‘subordinates’.’

Three behaviours Liz identifies that distinguish multipliers from diminishers are:

A multiplier removes fear and creates a safe environment: multipliers invite debate and encourage people to do their best thinking. Multipliers demand people’s best effort; and they get it!

Diminishers create a judgemental environment that has an inhibiting effect on people’s willingness to contribute to debate, resulting in sloppy thinking, poor decision-making and debased productivity. Diminishers demand people’s best effort, but they don’t get it.

A multiplier creates opportunity and sets challenges, encouraging individuals and teams to achieve stretch-targets. They generate confidence and self-belief in others and a desire to succeed, to push their boundaries. A multiplier does not have to have all the answers. In the words of management guru Tom Peters, ‘Make ‘I don’t know’ a strategic part of your leadership. Uncertainty is here to stay. Acknowledging it is a show of strength.’

By contrast, a diminisher has all the answers, is highly vocal about their opinions, gives directives and loves to showcase their knowledge and intelligence.

A multiplier is an investor. A multiplier will coach their people and hold them accountable to deliver the goods, allowing them to fail and learn their lessons on the way.

A diminisher micromanages their staff, whimsically jumping in and out of the detail and punishing failure. The diminisher delivers results through their own personal involvement, whereas the multiplier gives others ownership for results and invests in and celebrates their success.

Diminisher organisation case study

Enron, the infamous American energy company, was a classic diminisher organisation: it created a culture that worshipped, and paid money for, big talent, making their ‘stars’ constantly feel the need to prove their greatness. They were more concerned about maintaining their image than addressing problems and poor decisions and ultimately, decided it was better to lie and cover up than admit they were wrong. When Enron went bankrupt in December 2001, many of its executives were indicted and imprisoned, including CEO Jeff Skilling.

Much of the cause of the most recent financial meltdown can be attributed to a diminisher- and fixed mindset organisational culture. Malcolm Gladwell of The New Yorker spells out the problem with the fixed mindset: ‘When people live in an environment that esteems them for their innate talent, they have grave difficulty when their image is threatened. They will not take the remedial course’.

In practice, there is a continuum between a multiplier and a diminisher

Where would you position your leadership on that scale? What practices could you undertake to make yourself more of a multiplier?

Neuroscience reveals the part of the brain to sell to

Could you be using neuroscience to boost your sales?

Most sales people sell to the thinking brain, focusing their pitch around facts and information like technical specifications, product features, credentials, pricing, etc. Yet neuroscience research shows that the non-conscious part of our brain is the real decision-maker – we make decisions emotionally, then justify them rationally.

The problem is that our non-conscious brain is not equipped for cognitive thinking: while we’re pitching to the thinking brain, the emotional brain disengages.  So how can we engage the part of the brain involved in buying-decisions?

Paint them a picture

Paint them a picture

The emotional brain is not inherently designed to process words. It evolved about 300 million years ago whereas language is only 40,000 years old.
Also the optic nerve processes information 40 times faster than the auditory nerve. Incredibly 70% of the brain is used for visual processing. So lose all those text-heavy PowerPoint presentations – use pictures instead. The brain gets confused if it has to read text and listen to you talking. Watch any of the best TED talks, there’s not a bullet-point in sight. Instead they use evocative photography. It’s no wonder that the trend for websites is highly graphical.
Better still, demonstrate the product, tell stories and allow your prospect to get a feel for your offering.

Neuroscience reveals we make decisions emotionally, then justify them rationally.

Create contrast

The brain is our survival system. It is continually nonconsciously monitoring the environment, looking for change. So, in our hunter-gatherer days the appearance of a wild animal would be immediately processed as noteworthy and wake-up our brain.

The non-conscious brain therefore looks out for change, and ignores the non-remarkable. So if you begin your sales pitch with “We are one of the leading providers of sales training …”, this will largely go unnoticed. Much better to say “We are the only sales training company that applies the latest neuroscience research to boost sales performance”. This statement stands a much better chance of getting noticed. Hence the importance of communicating your niche and unique selling proposition boldly.

Stop telling, ask questions

Stop telling, start asking

All the research shows that the best salespeople ask questions rather than tell.  Skillfully crafted questions allow the client to work out for themselves how your product could help them.

The telling approach is ineffective because we all make sense of the world in very different ways. When we tell, we are operating from our viewpoint, not our client’s. What makes sense in our world may make little sense to them. We could be making all sorts of false assumptions.

In order for people to grasp new ideas, they have to create new connections and wire new “maps” into their own brains. This cannot happen through telling. It can only happen through one’s own thinking.

So, if you want to improve your sales results, stop telling clients how your product will help them, instead ask questions. This forces them to think about the issues and benefits for themselves – and research shows that this approach results in far fewer objections. People put up barriers when they think they are being sold to.

An additional benefit of this approach is that most complex sales require multiple decision-makers, so, by asking questions, you are helping your client to formulate their reasons to buy, which will help them sell your product or service internally.

Want to sell more … shut-up and listen!

The more you tell, the less you sell!

The human brain is designed to solve problems.  Imagine in our hunter/gatherer days solving the problem: how do I find food during a harsh winter.  This would clearly give us an evolutionary advantage. Our experience of pleasure from solving problems is the brain’s way of rewarding survival-based behaviours.

This explains why sales people are so keen to pitch their products at the slightest whiff of a customer problem – solving problems is highly satisfying because it triggers the brain’s dopamine reward system. The trouble is, it is the sales person that experiences the pleasure, not the customer.  In fact it could have an adverse effect on the customer who will likely push back (perhaps for no other reason than it wasn’t their idea). It is this subconscious  effect that gives rise to what is called a sales objection.

If pitching doesn’t work, what else can the eager sales person do?

The answer is to help the customer come up with the solution themselves. When someone solves their own problem they are rewarded with a release of dopamine in their brain, a neurotransmitter that creates positive emotions and satisfaction. It follows that if you are able to create positive feelings in your clients they are more likely to want to deal with you.

So instead of pitching, the best sales people devise a carefully crafted series of questions that allow clients to come up with the solution themselves. Good questioning will lead the customer to your offering.  Research by Huthwaite, amongst others, shows that this approach is far more successful, and results in 65% fewer objections than traditional selling.

Solving your client’s problems may make you feel good, but helping them solve their own problems makes them feel good.

Ask more questions; speak less!

One of the hardest things for a sales person is to bite their tongue – to suppress their evolutionary instinct to offer their solution. All the research shows that pitching early in the sales cycle has little impact on the customer, whereas inhibiting your urges until the prospect has reached their own conclusion has a high impact on the customer’s likelihood to buy. It’s no wonder that the most successful sales people think of selling as ‘joint problem solving’. They listen more, ask more questions, and speak less!

Solving your client’s problems may make you feel good, but helping them solve their own problems makes them feel good.  If you can make them feel good, they will naturally want to put their business with you!

Discover the latest insights from neuroscience into what makes people buy

Want to play guitar like Jimi Hendrix – is it nature or nurture?

Is it natural talent, or could you too play guitar like Jimi Hendrix?

As far back as I can remember, I fancied myself as a rock star! So when I turned 13, I persuaded my reluctant parents to buy me an electric guitar. I was convinced I’d be the next Jimi Hendrix; I thought I’d be a natural. I wouldn’t need to practice much – in fact, if I had to work at it, that would mean that I wasn’t naturally talented.

As you can probably guess, I never became a rock legend. I gave up the guitar, dismayed at my lack of progress. My rock and roll dreams were consigned to the dustbin of history!

Nature or nurture?

Most of us have been brought up to believe that talent is innate, for example Mozart was born musical, Tiger Woods was born a golfer, Einstein a physicist, etc. We believe that our abilities are governed by our genes – our DNA is our destiny! Prof Carol Dweck of Stanford University labels this type of thinking a fixed mindset – either you’ve got talent or you haven’t.  In my case, I clearly fell short when it came to the guitar, so there was no point trying to improve as I’d never make the grade.

By contrast, a growth mindset understands that talent and ability grow with practice, and innate ability is overrated. Research shows that a growth mindset goes hand-in-hand with high performance and happier, healthier individuals.

Managers with a growth mindset get double the productivity from their staff compared with fixed mindset managers

Dweck’s research is backed up by neuroscience findings that show that the brain actually grows and changes structure as we learn new skills. This was first discovered in 1999 at University College, London, where MRI brain scans of London taxi drivers showed that their hippocampus (the part of the brain used for spatial navigation) was much larger than in ordinary people.  The longer they’d been taxi drivers, the larger their hippocampus.

There are also many well documented cases of stroke victims who have made almost complete recoveries because the brain rewires itself to reallocate the processing from the ‘dead’ part of the brain.

In the workplace, it’s been estimated that managers with a growth mindset get double the productivity from their staff compared with fixed mindset managers.

As for me, I decided to give the guitar a second chance at the age of 40. This time my mindset was definitely growth. Armed with a good teacher, the right kind of practice and mental attitude, I managed to achieve a very competent standard.  Okay, I’m no Jimi Hendrix, but I am now achieving my rock and roll ambitions… and loving every minute I’m performing with my band on stage.

A word of caution – there is a continuum between a fixed and growth mindset.  People can also have a growth mindset in general, but a fixed mindset in specific areas.

Is your fixed mindset affecting your ability to lead? We can help!

Want to be more like Richard Branson? Here’s how …

“You’re good with your hands…” my parents told me when I was a young boy, “…and your brother’s the intelligent one”. What this spelt out to me was that I was thick! Psychologist Laurel Sheaf explains, “Early in life, we might feel judged or compare ourselves to others and think we come up short. To compensate, we figure out strategies to address whatever we think of as missing. Those early decisions become far-reaching declarations that set the stage for our whole future.”

This certainly rang true for me –not being up to the mark intellectually ran the show well into my 30s, regardless of what people said to the contrary.

Imposter Syndrome

This is such a common experience that there is a name for it: Imposter Syndrome. This toxic condition of low self-esteem becomes an explosive mixture in organisations when managers feel a need to cover up their perceived shortcomings in case people “find out who they really are!”

This often leads to dictatorial and defensive managerial behaviours, which is an example of what Prof Carol Dweck calls a fixed mindset, where we believe that who we are is an immutable truth. Liz Wiseman, a former Oracle executive, calls these types of managers diminishers. Diminishers blame others for failure whilst attributing successes to their own talent.

Who am I?

In biological terms, who we are is represented by a network of 86 billion neurons in our brain. These neuronal connections are who we are – or more correctly, who we have created ourselves to be through a lifetime’s experiences.

Thanks to fMRI imaging and neuroscience research, we now know that the brain is plastic and we can create new neuronal patterns and quite literally re-structure our brain. We are not prisoners of those early decisions we made about who we are.

Foundations for a growth mindset

Neuroplasticity lays the foundations for what Dweck terms a growth mindset – the recognition that we are all able to grow and change substantially, acquiring new skills and thinking patterns as we go through life. We can throw off the shackles of past limiting beliefs and create new futures for ourselves… to be more like Richard Branson, or any other role model we aspire to.

Limiting beliefs typically take the form of “I don’t have a musical bone in my body”, “I’m not the creative type”, “I’m no good at sales”. Or even more pernicious, “I’m not a very nice person.” Self-awareness of strengths and limitations is healthy; however when we let this impede our growth, ambitions and self-image, it becomes toxic.

Debunking limiting beliefs

Limiting beliefs of course seem very real. But their only reality is that of neuronal patterns (or mental events) generated by our brain. They have no more validity than this old picture of me with Richard Branson. It appears real, but I am actually posing with Richard’s wax doppelganger at Madame Tussauds!

In Sheaf’s words “In seeing ourselves as authors of these [flawed] interpretations, we come into the immense freedom of a whole new domain of possibility.”

What limiting beliefs do you have about yourself and those around you?

Keep your sales message simple – or your customer switches off

If you’re like me, when you get into a lift (or elevator if you’re American) you may have to stop and think (perhaps only for a second) which button to press to open the doors, and which to close.  The problem is the triangle symbol isn’t as intuitive as a simple arrow. I always think the close door sign looks more like the HSBC logo!  The complex button layout (left) means you have to consciously think about which button to press.  The symbols on the right are more intuitive.  We don’t need to think about arrows; their meaning is innate within us.

Lift panel
HSBC Symbol
Open and close buttons

In sales, if your customer has to stop and think in order to decode your message, you are adding an unnecessary barrier. Research shows that buying decisions are made by the non-conscious brain. So if your sales message isn’t clear and simple, you are forcing customer to use their energy-hungry conscious brain rather than their intuitive brain.  This causes them to think rather than act and can put the brakes on sales.

Why have 'a policeman in an automobile' when 'a cop in car will do'?!

With any written sales message, the simpler the better.  All too often we see marketng messages describing features as‚ ‘a next-generation scaleable integrated architecture‘. Nothing about this is intuitive. We have to stop and think about every word, and then what those words mean together. This is hard work for the buyer, and diminishes the likelihood of a successful sale.

The same message could be phrased in simple language‚ ‘it grows with your business needs‘  This doesn’t require us to engage our conscious brain; the meaning is directly and instantly apparent. The result is that your customer is far more likely to engage with you.

Put another way, why have a policeman in an automobile when a cop in car will do!


Painted Bones Spark 4,500-Year-Old Burial Mystery In Ukraine

Painted decoration on a woman's bones from 4,500 years ago in the Ukraine.

D. Żurkiewicz

Along the banks of the Dniester River in Ukraine lay numerous ancient burial mounds filled with human skeletons; the recent discovery that one woman's bones were painted after her death 4,500 years ago has sparked an archaeological mystery.

Starting in 2010, a team of Polish and Ukrainian archaeologists excavated 61 people from four barrow necropolises -- ancient mounds of dirt and stones built over one or more burials. The barrow type of tomb dates back at least 5,500 years to the early Neolithic period and is considered one of the oldest forms of architectural structure in the world. The team's goal was to investigate this geographic area as one of important cultural exchange from the Neolithic through the Bronze and Iron Ages.

In a report last year in the journal Baltic-Pontic Studies, Liudmyla Litvinova of the Ukrainian Academy of Science and her team published their findings from the skeletons in the four burial mounds. Most were linked to the Yamna or Yamnaya Culture, a term that means "pit culture" after the specific burial forms, dating to 3300-2600 BC. Importantly, the Yamnaya cultural area is one of the leading hypotheses for where the Proto-Indo-European language began.

Little is know about this prehistoric group of people, but bioarchaeologists have been using skeletal and DNA analysis to shed light on their lives. For example, the presence of anemic responses on many of the skulls coupled with a lack of dental cavities suggests they were eating a carbohydrate-poor but protein-heavy diet, in keeping with their economy of mobile animal herding. As with other pastoral cultures, the Yamnaya are assumed to have been patriarchal, and adult males are usually found at the center of the barrow burials.

One female skeleton, however, stuck out as different when the researchers looked closely at her. She was found at the archaeological site of Porohy, buried along with 13 other adults and five children, having died in her late 20s. Her skeleton revealed expected evidence of anemia and other dietary issues.

But while drawing and photographing the skeleton, "our attention was drawn to regular patterns, such as parallel lines, visible on both elbow bones," Danuta Żurkiewicz from the Institute of Archaeology at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań said in a press release

The researchers had never seen decorations on bones from this culture before, much less on a woman whose skeleton was covered in black colored patterns reminiscent of tattoos. "[She] had to be an important member of the community," Żurkiewicz notes.

The patterns appear to have been made long after the woman's death. Her tomb was reopened, the decorations were made, and the bones were rearranged in proper anatomical order once more. Chemical analysis of the black decorations, which is detailed by Żurkiewicz in the upcoming August issue of Baltic-Pontic Studies, has revealed they were likely made with tar derived from wood.

Reconstruction of the ancient woman with painted bones from Ukraine.

M. Posiadlo

Simple tattoos are well known from Ötzi, the mummy of a man who died around 3300 BC in the Alps; his appear to have been made from fireplace ash or soot. In later barrow type burials in the Pazyryk Culture in Siberia, there is also evidence of tattoos in the so-called Siberian Ice Maiden. Tattoos on living skin, though, are quite different than decorations on dead bone.

These designs are instead a form of secondary burial ritual -- as it is called by bioarchaeologists. These post-death rituals are not uncommon throughout the world, particularly in ancient cultures that reused tombs or buried family members together in a collective tomb. But the researchers note that nothing like this has ever been recorded in prehistoric communities in Europe before.

While the meaning of the bone designs will likely be discussed for years, it is clear that increased interest in the Yamnaya Culture of Eastern Europe and its neighbor, the Corded Ware Culture of central Europe, is changing how we view the pastoralist ancestors who gave rise to the languages that nearly half of us speak today.


Content-Aware Proactive Caching for Backhaul Offloading in Cellular Network - 2018

Proactive caching is taken into account a value-effective methodology to address the backhaul bottleneck downside in cellular network. In this Project, we tend to propose a novel popularity predicting- caching procedure that takes raw video data as an input to see an optimal cache placement policy, that deals with both revealed and unpublished videos. To anticipate the popularity of unpublished videos of which the statistical info isn't offered, we tend to apply the content-primarily based approach by extracting and condensing video options into a high-dimensional vector. Subsequently, we have a tendency to kind G clusters of options representing the potential video classes (VCs) and map the feature vector into a G-dimensional space, where every element indicates the proportion to which the video contains the features of the corresponding VC. Finally, we train a prediction model to foresee the popularity, where the set of published videos is used as training information. Last, the prediction with expert advice methodology is employed to update the coaching set, and to gain insight into how the predictor output will deviate from the best skilled prediction, we have a tendency to address the concept of expected cumulative loss and derive the analytical expression for its upper certain. Intensive simulation results are shown to gain insight into our proposed system subject to different factors, like network size, cache capacity, and user's preference profile. In summary, we show that applying intelligence-based mostly content-aware proactive caching is an economical approach to significantly improving the operation of cellular networks in the longer term.

Did you like this research project?

PROJECT TITLE :Scalable Content-Aware Collaborative Filtering for Location Recommendation - 2018ABSTRACT:Location recommendation plays an essential role in serving to folks realize enticing places. Though recent research has studied
PROJECT TITLE :SchemeLens: A Content-Aware Vector-Based Fisheye Technique for Navigating Large Systems DiagramsABSTRACT:System schematics, like those used for electrical or hydraulic systems, can be massive and complex. Fisheye
PROJECT TITLE :Content-Aware Video2Comics With Manga-Style LayoutABSTRACT:We introduce during this paper a replacement approach that conveniently converts conversational videos into comics with manga-vogue layout. With our approach,

Ready to Complete Your Academic MTech Project Work In Affordable Price ?

Project Enquiry


Unlocking the benefits of collaboration

Large corporations and government agencies face a growing array of complex issues. For many entities, the default option to tackle these challenges is to “go it alone”, however collaborating with others may offer superior outcomes.

Identifying and exploring opportunities to collaborate requires senior managers to take a step back and assess options.

Significant effort is required to ensure that collaborations are successful. Unique challenges arise in collaborative partnerships that present significant roadblocks to achieving outcomes. SPP understands the critical success factors for the establishment of successful collaborative initiatives. Early awareness of potential challenges is core to successful collaboration.

SPP brings a wealth of experience assisting many large organisations to achieve effective outcomes from strategic collaborations.

Read the complete article

Contact our practice lead for more information