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Excavations at the Temple Mount

Several excavations at the Temple Mount have taken place. The British RoyalEngineers began excavation in the 1870s. S ince 1967, Israeli digs and maintenance work inthe vicinity of the Mount have sparked demonstrations and criticism in the Muslim worldwhile Israel and Jewish groups have highlighted the deliberate and unsupervised removal ofsignificant amounts of earth containing archaeological artifacts from the site.

History Due to the extreme political sensitivity of the site, few archaeological excavations have beenconducted on the Temple Mount itself. Protests commonly occur whenever archaeologists

conduct projects on or near the Mount. This sensitivity has not prevented theMuslim Waqf from destroying archeological evidence on a number of occasions.

Aside from visual observation of surface features, most other archaeological knowledge ofthe site comes from the 19th century survey carried out by Charles Wilson and CharlesWarren . Warren was one of the first to excavate this area, exemplifying a new era of Biblicalarchaeology in the 1870s. In 1930, R.W. Hamilton, director of the British MandateAntiquities Department, carried out the only archeological excavation ever undertaken at theTemple Mount's Aqsa Mosque by the British Mandate, the excavations show a Byzantinemosaic floor underneath the mosque that was likely the remains of a church or amonastery.LEFKOVITS,ETGAR. The Jerusalem Post . November 2008.

Post 1967 In 1967 the Religious Affairs Ministry began an unlicensed excavation. Starting at thewestern wall plaza, workers dug northward, under the Old City's Muslim Quarter .

In 1968 –69, Israeli archeologists carried out excavations at the foot of the Temple Mount,immediately south of the al-Aqsa Mosque and opened two ancient Second Temple periodtunnels there that penetrate beneath Al-Aqsa Mosque in the area of the Hulda and Singlegates, penetrating five meters into one and 30 meters into another. "At the Temple Mount'ssouth wall digging took place to uncover the Arabic Umayyad palaces and Crusaderremains."

In 1970, Israeli authorities commenced intensive excavations directly beneath the mosqueon the southern and western sides. Over the period 1970 –1988, the Israeli authoritiesexcavated a tunnel passing immediately to the west of the Temple Mount, northwards from

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the Western Wall , that became known as the Western Wall Tunnel . They sometimes usedmechanical excavators under the supervision of archeologists. Palestinians claim that bothof these have caused cracks and structural weakening of the buildings in the MuslimQuarter of the city above. Israelis confirmed this danger:

"The Moslem authorities were concerned about the ministry tunnel along the Temple Mountwall, and not without cause. Two incidents during the Mazar dig along the southern wall hadsounded alarm bells .Technion engineers had already measured a slight movement in partof the southern wall during the excavations...There was no penetration of the Mount itself ordanger to holy places, but midway in the tunnel's progress large crac ks appeared in one ofthe residential buildings in the Moslem Quarter, 12 meters above the excavation. The digwas halted until steel buttresses secured the building."

In 1977, digging continued and a large ancient tunnel was opened below the women'sprayer area. A further tunnel was unearthed under the mosque, going from east to west, in

1979. In addition, in March 1984 the Archaeological Department of the Israeli Ministry ofReligious Affairs dug a tunnel near the western portion of the mosque, endangering theIslamic "Majlis" or council building.Amayreh, Khaled. Al-Ahram Weekly . February 2007. In1981, Yehuda Meir Getz, rabbi of the Western Wall , had workmen open theancien tWarren's Gate , accessing the innards of the Temple Mount itself from the WesternWall Tunnel. Arabs on the Mount heard excavation noises from one of the more than twodozen cisterns on the Mount. Israeli Government officials, upon being notified of theunauthorized tunneling, immediately ordered the Warren's Gate resealed. The 2000-year-old stone gate was filled with cement, and remains cement-shut today.AbrahamRabinovich, . In 1996, Israel opened up an exit to the tunnel, which led to riots.

Archeologist Leon Pressouyre, a UNESCO envoy who visited the site in 1998 and claims tohave been prevented from meeting Israeli officials (in his own words, "Mr Avi Shoket,Israel's permanent delegate to UNESCO, had repeatedly opposed my mission and, when Iexpressed the wish to meet with his successor, Uri Gabay, I was denied an appointment",accuses the Israeli government of culpably neglecting to protect the Islamic period buildingsuncovered in Israeli excavations. More recently, Prof. Oleg Grabar of the Institute forAdvanced Study in Princeton has replaced Leon Pressouyre as the UNESCO envoy toinvestigate the Israeli allegations that antiquities are being destroyed by the Waqf on theTemple Mount. Initially, Grabar was denied access to the buildings by Israel for over a year,allegedly due to the threat of violence resulting from the al-Aqsa Intifada . His eventualconclusion was that the monuments are deteriorating largely because of conflicts over whois responsible for them, the Jordanian government, the local Palestinian Authority or theIsraeli government.

1990s

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Western Wall Tunnel (1996)

Concrete supports in the tunne l.

After the Six Day War , the Ministry of Religious Affairs of Israel began the excavationsaimed at exposing the continuation of the Western Wall . The excavations lasted almosttwenty years and revealed many previously unknown facts about the history and geographyof the Temple Mount .

The tunnel exposes a total length of 500m o f the wall, revealing the methods of constructionand the various activities in the vicinity of the Temple Mount. The excavations includedmany archaeological finds along the way, including discoveries from the Herodian period(streets, monumental masonry), sections of a reconstruction of the Western Wall dating tothe Umayyad period, and various structures dating tothe Ayyubid , Mamluke and Hasmonean periods constructed to support buildings in thevicinity of the Temple Mount. Warren's Gate lies about 150 feet into the tunnel.

At the northern portion of the Western Wall, remains of a water channel , which originallysupplied water to the Temple Mount, were found. The exact source of the channel isunknown, though it passes through an underground pool known as the Strouthion Pool . Thewater channel was dated to the Hasmonean period and was accordingly dubbedthe Hasmonean Channel .

The biggest stone in the Western Wall often called the Western Stone is also revealedwithin the tunnel and ranks as one of the heaviest objects ever lifted by human beingswithout powered machinery. The stone has a length of 13.6 meters and an estimated widthof between 3.5 and 4.5 meters; estimates place its weight at 570 tons.

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In 1996, former Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu opened the Western WallTunnel near the site, it sparked riots in which around 80 people were killed.

Construction of el-Marwani Mosque (1996-1999)

Excavations taking p lace atop t he Temple Mount by the Islamic Waqf, w hich many experts believe destroys valuablearchaeological data.

In 1996 the Waqf began construction in the structures known since Crusader timesas Solomon's Stables , and in the Eastern Hulda Gate passageway, allowed the area to be(re)opened as a mosque called the Marwani Musalla capable of accommodating 7,000individuals. Many Israelis regard this as a radical change of the status quo under which thesite had been administered s ince the Six-Day War which should not have been undertakenwithout consulting the Israeli government. Palest inians regard these objections as

irrelevant. In 1997, the Western Hulda Gate passageway was converted into anothermosque. In November 1999, a buried Crusader-era door was reopened as an emergencyexit for the Mosque located within the Solomon's Stables area, opening an excavationclaimed by Israel to be in size and up to deep. The project, which was done withoutattention to the possibility of disturbing historically significant archaeological material,entailed the use of heavy earthmoving equipment to fill 300 dump trucks with topsoil, stoneand ancient artifacts jumbled without regard to their preservation.

According to The New York Times , an emergency exit had been urged upon the Waqf bythe Israeli police, and its necessity was acknowledged by the Israel Antiquities Authority .

Temple Mount Antiquities Salvage Operation The Temple Mount Antiquities Salvage Operation is an archaeological project established in2005 and dedicated to recovering archaeological artifacts from the 300 truckloads of topsoilremoved from the Temple Mount by the Waqf during the construction of the underground el-Marwani Mosque from 1996-1999.

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2000s In autumn 2002, a bulge of about 700 mm was reported in the southern retaining wall partof the Temple Mount. It was feared that part of the wall might seriously deteriorate or evencollapse. The Waqf would not permit detailed Israeli inspection but came to an agreementwith Israel that led to a team of Jordanian engineers inspecting the wall in October. Theyrecommended repair work that involved replacing or resetting most of the stones in theaffected area which covers 2,000 square feet (200 m 2) and is located 25 feet (8 m) from thetop of the wall. Repairs were completed before January 2004. The restoration of 250 squaremeters of wall cost 100,000 Jordanian dinars ($140,000).

On February 11, 2004, the eastern wall of the Temple Mount was damaged by anearthquake. The damage threatens to topple sections of the wall into the area known asSolomon's Stables.

On February 16, 2004, a few days after the earthquake, a portion of a stone retaining wall,supporting the ramp that leads from the Western Wall plaza to the Gate of the Moors on theTemple Mount, collapsed. Islamic Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organizationcondemned the "excavations carried out by the Israeli occupying authorities under the AqsaMosque" which they claimed caused the collapse of the path.

Mughrabi Gate ramp reconstruction (February 2007) In February 2007, Israel began digging outside the Mughrabi Gate (the Moroccan Gate)claiming that it was repairing an old ramp – which had collapsed in 2005 – leading to Al-

Aqsa Mosque. Muslim officials contended that the digging was part of Israeli designsagainst the mosque. The excavations provoked anger throughout the Islamic world , andIsrael was accused of trying to destroy the foundation of the mosque . Ismail Haniya — then Prime Minister of the Palestinian National Authority and Hamas leader — called onPalestinians to unite to protest the excavations, while Fatah said they would end theirceasefire with Israel .Malaysia condemned Israel for the excavation works around andbeneath the Al-Aqsa Mosque and for willfully destroying religious, cultural and heritage sitesin Al-Quds. Malaysia has condemned this as an act of destruction and aggression. KingAbdullah condemned the Israeli actions against worshippers at Al -Aqsa Mosque. Hestressed that Jordan will save no efforts to encourage Arab , Islamic World , and internationalleaders to halt Israel's excvation work in the area. The secretary-general of the 57-member Organization of the Is lamic Conference , Professor Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu , expressed his anguish and dismay at the world’s silence on Israel’s "blatant moves toJudaize Jerusalem and change the holy city’s historic charac ter." He stated: "the excavationwork being carried out by Israel constituted the gravest threat ever to one of Islam’s threeholiest mosques"

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Israel denied all charges against them, calling them "ludicrous". As a result of the furore,Israeli authorities have installed cameras to film excavation work being carried out near theAl-Aqsa Mosque. The footage will be broadcast live on the internet, in an attempt to easewidespread anger in the Muslim world. Israel says the work is needed to repair a walkwayup to the compound. On March 20, 2007 the Turkish Government sent a technical team toinspect and report on the excavations to the Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The Kingdom of the Saudi Arabia issued a statement condemning Israeli excavationsaround Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa Mosque which is considered to be the third holies placein Islam . Moreover, the kingdom called the international community to stop the dig. "Israel’sactions violate the mosque’s sacred nature and risk destroying its religious and Islamicfeatures" the s tatement said.

Syria condemned Israel's excavations as a "blatant violation of the international

law and UN resolutions to change the city's nature and its demographic status".

An Iranian official in the UN strongly condemned " Zionist atrocities in occupied Palestinianlands, particularly the recent acts of profanity on the al-Aqsa Mosque in Al-Qods' old city".

Electricity cable replacement (July 2007) In July 2007 the Muslim religious trust which administers the Mount began digging a 400-metre-long, 1.5-metre-deep trench from the northern side of the Temple Mount compoundto the Dome of the Rock in order to replace 40-year-old electric cables in the area. The dig,carried out by the Jerusalem Electricity Company , was approved by the Israeli police , but

the Israel Antiquities Authority declined to comment whether it had approved theexcavations. Israeli archaeologists accused the Waqf of a deliberate act of culturalvandalism. The Committee for the Prevention of Destruction of Antiquities on the TempleMount criticized the use of a tractor for excavation at the Temple Mount "without real,professional and careful archaeological supervision involving meticulousdocumentation". Archaeologist Eilat Mazar said: ―There is disappointment at the turning of ablind eye and the ongoing contempt for the tremendous archaeological importance of theTemple Mount...‖, ―...Using heavy machinery and with little documentation, can damageancient relics and erase evidence of the presence of the biblical structures. Any excavation,even if for technical reasons, must be documented, photographed and the dirt sifted for anyremains of relics.‖ Dr. Gavriel Barkai slammed the way the excavations were being carriedout stating that ―They should be using a toothbrush , not a bulldozer ‖. He maintains that―some man -worked stones have been found in the trench...as well as remnants of a wallthat, according to all our estimations, are from a structure in one of the outer courtyards inthe Holy Temple .‖Archaeologist Zachi Zweig said a tractor used to dig the trench damagedthe foundation of a 7-yard-wide wall "that might have been a remnant of the SecondTemple ."

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Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Muhammad Ahmad Hussein rejected the Israeli charges. "Wedon't harm the antiquities, we are the ones who are taking care of the antiquities, unlikeothers who destroy them.‖ Yusuf Natsheh of the Islamic Waqf dismissed the claims, saying―the area has been dug many times‖ and argued that ―remains unearthed would be from the16th or 17th century Ottoman period‖. He said that the work was urgently needed tomaintain the al-Aqsa compound as an important religiou s institution. ―We regret some Israeligroups try to use archaeology to achieve political ends, but their rules of archaeology do notapply to the Haram; it is a living religious site in an occupied land.‖ In September 2007, the Orthodox Union condemned Waqf Excavations on the TempleMount. The Anti-Defamation League Abraham Foxman said work on the Temple Mountmust stop immediately. "We are especially concerned because there is a history of Muslimreligious leaders treating Israeli religious and cultural artifacts on the Temple Mount, not tomention the Jewish connection to Jerusalem, with contempt‖.

Finds In 2007, artifacts dating to the eighth to sixth centuries BCE were described as being

possibly the first physical evidence of human activity at the Temple Mount during theFirst Temple period. The findings inc luded animal bones; ceramic bowl rims, bases,and body sherds; the base of a juglet used to pour oil; the handle of a small juglet; andthe rim of a storage jar.

By 2006, the Temple Mount Antiquities Salvage Operation had recovered numerousartifacts dating from the 8th to 7th centuries BCE from dirt removed in 1999 by theIslamic Religious Trust (Waqf) from the Solomon's Stables area of the Temple Mount.

These include stone weights for weighing silver and a First Temple period bulla , or sealimpression, containing ancient Hebrew writing, which may have belonged to a well-known family of priests mentioned in the Book of Jeremiah.