[3] In 1968–71, Barkay and David Ussishkin surveyed the Silwan necropolis from the time of the Judean Monarchy during the Iron Age, containing 50 rock-cut tombs of Judahite high government officials.

[5] In 2005, together with archaeologist Zachi Zweig, Barkay established the Temple Mount Sifting Project, a project funded by the Ir David Foundation and dedicated to recovering archaeological artifacts from 400 truckloads of earth removed from the Temple Mount by the Waqf and Israeli Islamic movement during 1996–2001.

[7][8] Barkay frequently appears on the History Channel show The Naked Archaeologist, which is hosted by Simcha Jacobovici.

He also appeared in the documentary The Real Da Vinci Code in 2005, hosted by British actor Tony Robinson of Blackadder fame, offering his views on the speculation that the Templars found secret documents relating to the bloodline of Jesus Christ under the Temple Mount as advanced by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln in their controversial book The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail.

In Barkay's opinion, there exists no evidence that the Templars conducted any excavations in the area at all, and that the tools available to them at the time were not sufficient to dig far enough to reach the ruins in question.