Excavations at the Temple Mount
Archaeology of a Jerusalem holy site / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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A number of archaeological excavations at the Temple Mount—a celebrated and contentious religious site in the Old City of Jerusalem—have taken place over the last 150 years. Excavations in the area represent one of the more sensitive areas of all archaeological excavations in Jerusalem.
The term Temple Mount usually refers to the artificially expanded platform at the top of the natural hill and the compound situated there. The compound is delineated by four ancient retaining walls, and is of high religious significance. The compound itself has only very rarely been the object of archaeological work, unlike the area surrounding it, which has been quite intensively excavated, especially along the southern and western walls. This article deals both with the Temple Mount compound, and with those adjacent areas. The first section of the article presents a history of archaeological exploration and the political reactions to it, while the second section deals with the actual discoveries of such work.
The first archaeological work was undertaken by the British Royal Engineers in the 1860s in the Ordnance Survey of Jerusalem and subsequently the PEF Survey of Palestine.[1]
Since Israel took control of the Old City in 1967, archaeological excavations in the vicinity of the Mount have been undertaken by Israel. Any type of earthmoving work inside the compound however, has mainly been reserved to the Jordanian/Palestinian-led Jerusalem Islamic Waqf, the Muslim authority in charge of the Al-Aqsa compound, who employs its own archaeologist and who at times has applied for the services of Jordanian and Egyptian restoration specialists. Work done by both sides has been controversial and criticized. Israeli and Jewish groups have criticized excavations conducted by the Waqf, with the Muslim side criticizing work done by the Israeli side. International organizations, such as UNESCO, sometimes intervene in the conflicts.