Monday, January 2, 2006
The Washington Times has an article on the Israeli efforts to sift through the rubble left from their construction on the interior of the Temple Mount.
Artifacts with links to Bible unearthed
Most of the stones and earth originally were taken to an organic garbage dump in nearby Bethany, the New Testament town known in Arabic as Al-Azariya, and could not be retrieved. But a substantial portion was diverted to the Valley of Kidron, mentioned in the Old Testament and located just outside the Old City's massive walls.
This ambitious archaeological project, known as the Temple Mount Antiquities Operation, was started in November 2004, when Muslims excavated the sector north of Solomon's Stables to build the massive underground Marwani Mosque. Its second season, now under way, will last until February.
The Waqf, or Muslim officials who administer the site -- known to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary -- helped the Israelis arrange the transfer...
The Waqf helped them to do what? I don't get that part. It makes it sound like the Waqf did a great thing bulldozing all this stuff en masse so the Israelis could find it. How considerate! I'm sure that's not the intent, though.
Say, if the Palestinians want control of the old city, maybe they shouldn't show how much they deserve it by bulldozing and discarding inconvenient antiquities. Y'think?
"Say, if the Palestinians want control of the old city, maybe they shouldn't show how much they deserve it by bulldozing and discarding inconvenient antiquities."
Thats' a painful subject, Solomon, and not talked about much in our media here. Somebody in the city council and our government considers the whole issue to be too loaded to try to resolve it in the only possible way - namely, to forbid the Waqf work till both sides work out a proper supervision of all work by archeologists.
Shame, really.
From the article: "The site is not considered an archaeological dig. The workers use a technique called "wet sifting," similar to the way prospectors pan for gold."
No shit. It's not an archeological site because the WAQF destroyed that, erasing 90% of the knowledge that could be gained from the objects in situ. They have to be sifted because that's the only way to find them. And the article totally misses that. Unbelievable.