The Story Behind our Survey

By Zachi Zweig

Since 1996 the Wakf (the Muslim Trust for the Temple Mount) has been doing construction work on the mount in order to build the biggest mosque in the Middle East. Until recently, only very straightforward renovation work was done. The major projects that were carried out included renovations of the dome of Al-Aksa in the 1980s and the gilding of the dome of the Rock in the mid-1990s. But these were improvements on existing structures, and did not involve excavating beneath the Temple Mount surface.

A few years ago the Wakf began a series of major works, larger in scale than anything done until now. In early November 99 the Wakf began digging a monumental entrance to the mosque, since it is an underground structure. Bulldozers unearthed an area to a depth of 12 meters. When this act was published, two archaeologists claimed that there was no real archaeological damage to the Mount because the diggings were in an area, which contained only late fills. They were lone voices within the country's Archaeological community. Despite this, their view was widely-quoted by the Israeli press. So the public was sure that archaeologically there was nothing to worry about.

For years the Wakf has been denying that there was any historical presence on the mount before the Muslem era. The current dig, according to the Wakf, is merely removing the 'Christian' strata, and returning the mount to its original Muslim state. According to a Wakf worker, who participated in the early constructions in 1996, all the earth they took out was sifted and scanned by a metal detector. Stones with decorations and inscriptions were recut, so that markings were destroyed. I asked him what kind of writing he saw on the stones, and he told me that it was Ancient Hebrew. The most interesting thing that he told me was that he also saw 5 pointed star symbols on the stones. This person has no idea what a 5-pointed star means, but we know that this was a Hasmonean symbol that is commonly found on handle seals from the 2nd century BCE. In the recent construction the Wakf could not filter all the earth because of the huge amount that came from the digging. Nevertheless the Wakf removed large items of value, before loading the earth on to the dump trucks. Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) officials confirmed this, saying that items such as columns and large, decorated building stones had been kept on the mount.

The idea of making a survey of the pottery shards in the earth taken out of the Temple Mount came to me in early 1999 when I was working on a seminar paper in my second year of studying archaeology. I was writing about the Archaeology of Jerusalem in the 10th century BCE. The finding of pottery shards from that period could really contribute to the current debate we witness these days, about the size and role of Jerusalem in that period. I heard some rumors that a few trucks had been seen taking earth off the Mount. So I thought since that Temple Mount cannot be excavated we could at least examine the earth taken out of the mount. I contacted Haaretz journalist, Nadav Shragai, who knows a lot about the mount and even wrote a book about it. But he did not know about any trucks leaving the mount. He was not sure if these were just rumors, so he told me to speak to Yehuda Ezion, head of the Chai Vekayam movement, and who is well known for his struggle to return Jewish sovereignty to the Temple Mount, and preparing it for the re-construction of the Temple. Yehuda Ezion said that he himself saw about 10 trucks leaving the mount, but did not follow them. After that nothing happened until the recent digging on the Mount. Hundreds of trucks were seen removing earth from the mount. Ezion traced the trucks and found out that they all reached Jerusalem's Municipal garbage site. There it was all mixed with the local garbage, making it impossible for any archaeological examination in the future. When Ezion informed the manager of the garbage site that these trucks contained earth with archaeological value, he directed them to a clean area. But, after redirecting 4 trucks, they stopped coming to the garbage site. We thought that perhaps they had finished removing the earth, but the very next day, during a midnight mission, they dumped tons of excavated material by the truckload into the Kidron Valley.

The following day we arrived at the new dumpsite in the Kidron Valley and took a sample of pottery from the new “Tel” created by the Wakf. Before we left, a person who identified himself as a Wakf representative told us we should not be there with out a special permit. He threatened us that if we did not leave the site immediately he would call the police (what a pathetic state of affairs is it when the criminal is the one who can use the police as his backup). He said that all they did was just remove the 'Christian layers' from the Mount and returned it to its Muslim state; as it has always been. It was already late so we left without out arguing with him. We were afraid that the Wakf would deposit dirt from modern construction sites on to these dumps in order to mix it up, so we decided to undertake an immediate survey. Our target was to check if this earth has any archaeological value, and to encourage the IAA to do a serious examination of the debris. The next day I spoke to Gideon Avni, former Jerusalem district archaeologist of the IAA. I told him we were going to conduct a survey at the site the next day. I encountered an apathetic response claiming that there was no real archaeological damage in the Temple Mount, and that the debris was worthless. At the university I checked the small amount of pottery we already had with Dr. Dan Baht. He dated at least half of it to the Second Temple Era. Haaretz journalist Nadav Shragai contacted me and published our findings in a small report. 

Two days later we came back with 15 volunteers and a friend of mine, Aran Yardeni, which is also an archaeology student, who co-directed this survey. First we went to the dumps in the garbage site. Since it is not an archaeological site I allowed myself to bring a metal detector to examine the debris. But, in the end, the metal detector was not used because the debris was mixed with modern construction materials, which included many iron bars and nails - probably coming from the disassembly of the modern Temple Mount paving. After two hours of sifting through these small piles of earth, we managed to collect a considerable amount of ceramic rims and glass pieces. We then went to the Kidron Valley where Ezion brought a crew from ABC Nightline news, who were working on a story about the Temple Mount. When we arrived at the Kidron we encountered IAA theft inspectors. They demanded that the journalists not take any pictures, asked us to leave the site immediately and hand over to them all the pottery shards we had. At first I was glad that the IAA was taking care of the dumps but then I realized that they really didn't care what would happen to the debris. All that interested them was to keep the issue as quite as possible. They probably knew from Sharagai's report that the debris contains Temple Era pottery. They said that we were not allowed to collect any artifacts because this part of the Kidron is an archaeological site (which, of course, is now buried under this debris). The whole situation was absurd. I phoned John Seligman, Jerusalem's district archaeologist, and asked him what happed that suddenly they care about the site. He told me that we are not allowed to do any type of archaeological survey without the IAA's permission and supervision. I told him that it would be a shame not to make use of all the volunteers who had showed up, so I suggested that the IAA inspectors supervise us and that we would hand over to them all the material when we finished. Seligman accepted my offer on one condition, that all the media cameras would be removed.

Meanwhile we’d noticed 2 small piles of earth, obviously taken from another site, as their texture was different. These 2 small piles of earth were full of human bones! Perhaps the Arabs thought that the Temple Mount's debris was holy for Jews, and if they dug up some graves and dumped them on the debris, we would keep away from there. After a few minutes Seligman called back and said that Amir Drori, director of the IAA, ordered that we immediately leave the site and hand over all that we’d collected to the inspectors. Meanwhile more IAA inspectors arrived on the scene, including Amir Ganor, head of the archeological theft unit. Ezion refused to follow their orders. Being an Archeology student, I felt that I didn’t have the luxury to quarrel with the IAA, so Aran and me tried to leave the site. But they blocked all exits and would not let us leave until we handed over all what I had in the car.  I gave them all the material I had in my car, which was only from the Garbage site, and then they let me leave. Later on when the police arrived, Ezion still persisted in not handing over to the IAA any material. Eventually Ganor sent the police away, saying that he recalled that Ezion had helped them in the past, by informing them about antiquities thefts. He let Ezion leave with all the material that we had collected in the Kidron Valley. This, of course, is not the real reason he let Ezion leave without relinquishing anything. I believe the real reason was that the IAA realized that an arrest would make the issue newsworthy, and that would publicly ridicule them.

The archaeologists, Dr. Gabi Barkai, Dr. Aren Maeir and Dr. Dan Baht, examined and helped us date the material. Aran and me were honored to be permitted to report our findings at the annual conference of the Ingeborg Rennert Center for Jerusalem Studies at Bar-Ilan University. The IAA made many efforts to prevent the presentation of this issue at the conference. They told me that I should publish the data in small forums before releasing it to the public, and certainly not at an important conference like this one. We gave a brief report of our findings, and the crowd gave us a lot of support. But the IAA archaeologists reviled us and our report, even though all the other archaeologists supported us. Even Amir Drori, IAA director, specially came to the conference to protest against Bar-Ilan University giving patronage to our survey. This report caused a storm in the archaeology community. The same day the IAA appointed archaeologist Yuval Baruch to examine the dumps, to show that they were not neglecting the issue.

Our report caused a major embarrassment to the IAA, because of the following reasons:

1. The fact that the IAA was not aware of where the trucks were directed to dump the dirt, exposed an irresponsible attitude and lack of interest on their part, as to what was going on on the Mount. Only the intervention of Y. Ezion stopped the dumping in the garbage site. I'd rather not conjecture what it means, if the IAA was aware that the trucks were depositing their loads in the garbage dump.

2. The fact that the IAA personally didn’t examine the Kidron dumps is also very shameful. What they did was exactly the opposite; they tried to stop others from checking. They only appointed an archaeologist to check the dumps on the day of the conference, so they could claim that they were doing something.

3. The fact that we proved that this earth contains masonry stones and large quantities of pottery from the first and second Temple era, contradicts all that was said by the IAA and some other archaeologists who tried to minimize the damage.

At the conference, IAA archaeologist, Yaakov Bilig, and Bar-Ilan archaeologist Avi Faust, initiated a petition against the destruction of antiquities in the Temple Mount. (The petition on the web site is an add on to that one.) He gathered signatures from more than 200 scholars who attended the conference. But when he wanted to publish it the next week, Amir Drori stopped him.

The next week Nadav Shragai reported that the pit had reached the length of 50 meters and that the dismantling of a water channel had been observed. It was also reported that a tractor had been seen working at the Kidron dumps and had pushed all the piles of earth from the area above the slope down the slope. In addition some trucks had dumped more earth on the debris. I visited the site again and found out that some of the debris was now mixed with earth from a different location. This decreases the small archaeological value that the dumps initially had; still about 80% is undisturbed. Another addition to the debris was a group of masonry stones at the foot of the slope. These stones were part of a water channel and an arch. This was another indication that Shragai's report was reliable. Later on I called Seligman to report about what I'd seen. Seligman told me that the tractor that worked at the site was from the IAA, and that Yuval Baruch had been working there all week. I could not see any sense in pouring earth down the slope. Previously the piles of earth above the slope blocked the access to the dumps so that more trucks could not come and add to the debris, but now anyone can easily come and deposit his garbage there. Seligman was not aware that in the middle of that week some more earth had been dumped on the Temple Mount's debris, which indicated that he was lying to me, and Yuval Baruch had worked there no more than 2 days. He also said that the water channel that had been seen on the mount is from the 19th century. This couldn't be a 19th century water channel because it was taken out from a depth of 2-3 meters. By saying this he is trying to underestimate the archaeological damage and keep the issue quite.

The problem was that no prominent archaeologist publicly protested against this atrocity. So I organized a demonstration of archeologists at the foot of the Kidron dumps. 20-30 archaeologists attended this demonstration, including 7 of Israel's most prominent archaeologists. The demonstrators were from all Israeli political factions. The impact of this demonstration resulted in a decision of MK Ofir Pines, chairman of the Archaeological lobby in the Knesset, to hold a special debate about the issue in the Israeli Parliament. Journalists from all the newspapers in Israel covered the demonstration, but none of the big newspapers reported it. From a friend who works in Yediot Aharonot, Israeli's largest newspaper, I know that a long report had been prepared in the paper's computer system, but the editor probably took it out. The same happened with the Bar-Ilan conference and the other incidents, where reporters were sent by their editors to cover this issue, but the next day nothing appeared in the papers. The mainstream media ignored even a political demonstration of 5000 people in front of the mount. The only newspapers that reported these occurrences were, Haaretz and The Jerusalem Post. The journalists also told me that they couldn't understand it. The radio reporters told me that it was difficult for them to get their reports aired. What I'm trying to say is that I believe that this issue was constantly censored. The next week I tried to find out what was happening with the Knesset debate that Ofir Pines initiated. His assistant told me that it wouldn't take place because there were other issues which were more important. After I said I would ask other MK's from the archaeological lobby to conduct this debate, Pines's spokesman told me that they had made a mistake and that eventually it would take place.

There are many more details that can prove that this issue is being silenced. My actions interfered with this policy. For this reason I believe the next event happened. On early Monday morning, January 17th, the head of the theft unit, Amir Ganor, accompanied by 3 other men, raided my home. They confiscated all the material left from the Kidron and found 3 more shards from a different, unconnected site that I had told them about. Ganor was frustrated that they didn't find any coins, and tried to accuse me of robbing caves. I was arrested and taken to the police for investigation. I refused to cooperate in this political investigation by the IAA, but agreed to be questioned by the police. They refused to let me see a lawyer, and after a few hours of trying to scare me that if I wouldn't talk to the IAA I would spend the night in jail, they gave up, and allowed the investigation to be conducted by the police. After the police heard the whole story, they laughed at the IAA and said that they had nothing with which to press charges against me. The case is still open, I haven't been summoned again for another investigation and it seems that they will let me off. This arrest just brought the Temple Mount back to the media's attention. Two days later the Knesset's archaeological lobby debate took place, but did not yield any results.

Meanwhile the dumps in the Kidron are not being taken care of, and are in a danger of being mixed with garbage.

March 13, 2000