Excavating in the Shadow of the Temple Mount - The BAS Library
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Home > Magazines > BAR > November/December 1986

Excavating in the Shadow of the Temple Mount

By Hershel Shanks

It should have been the jewel in Israel’s archaeological crown. In fact, Israel’s excavation of the area adjacent to Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, on the south and southwest sides of the sacred precinct, has been the subject of continuing controversy and criticism. Excavation results have been spectacular, true, but they fall short of what might have been—indeed, what should have been. 022 Even before pickax broke earth, resistance to the excavation came—this will seem ironic only to the uninitiated—from Israel’s twin-headed Chief Rabbinate. But for this resistance, the dig might have begun at the so-called Wailing, or Western, Wall […]

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Footnotes

1.

“Sephardi” designates the community of Jews that traces its ancestors to Spain, southern Europe and North Africa.

2.

“Ashkenazi” designates the community of Jews that descends from Jews dispersed in Russia and eastern Europe.

3.

Meir Ben-Dov, In the Shadow of the Temple (New York: Harper & Row, 1985) 381 pp., $24.95.

4.

New York: Doubleday.

5.

Kol Ha’ir, October 29, 1982, p. 21.

6.

See “Has Jerusalem’s Millo Been Found?” BAR 08:04, and “New York Times Misrepresents Major Jerusalem Discovery,” BAR 07:04.

7.

See “Jerusalem Flourishing—A Craft Center for Stone, Pottery and Glass,” BAR 09:06, by Nahman Avigad and “Jerusalem in Flames—The Burnt House Captures a Moment in Time,” BAR 09:06. See also Philip J. King’s review of Discovering Jerusalem: Recent Archaeological Excavations in the Upper City by Nahman Avigad in Books in Brief, BAR 09:06.

8.

The failure to mention Lalor may stem from the fact that Lalor wrote to senior members of Israel’s archaeological community charging that Ben-Dov had improperly confiscated part of the dig records, in effect ousting the dig director, Benjamin Mazar.