Controvery Simmers Over Temple Mount Dig

by PEP | August 30, 2007 at 07:37 pm

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The complexity of protecting antiquities claimed as sacred by warring religions is demonstrated by these report sabout a dig at Temple Mount in Israel. The quoted article from the Jerusalem Post reports archaeologists' claims that a Muslim dig is damaging a sacred Jewish site.

However, at Breitbart, the story is presented as a discovery of the Second Temple on the Mount. "Remains of the Jewish second temple may have been found during work to lay pipes at the Al-Aqsa mosque compound in east Jerusalem, Israeli television reported Thursday.

Israeli television broadcast footage of a mechanical digger at the site
which Israeli archaeologists visited on Thursday."

Analyzing the stories side by side doesn't help make it clear if the exact same area is the focus of the reports. By comparing the accounts of mechanical diggers and visits from Jewish archaeologists, the inference is that this is the same dig.

Which account is most accurate? Most importantly, why are these stories reported so differently?

The Israeli Government is lending a hand to the destruction of one of the most important archaeological sites in the world," said Bar-Ilan University archaeologist Dr. Gabriel Barkai at a Jerusalem press conference.

Barkai said the dig, which involves tractors and other heavy construction equipment, has created a 400-meter-long and 1.5-meter-deep trench on the site, destroying layers of ancient remains.

Among the antiquities that have been damaged are a 7-meter-wide wall that apparently dates back to Second-Temple times and was likely part of the Temple courts, according to Israeli archaeologists from the nonpartisan Committee Against the Destruction of Antiquities on the Temple Mount.