Archeologists Slam Authorities Over Muslim Dig

August 28, 2007

Author: Etgar Lefkovits

Source: Jerusalem Post

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1188197171632&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

A group of Israeli archeologists on Monday renewed their blistering condemnation of the Antiquities Authority for authorizing Muslim officials to carry out a dig on Jerusalem's Temple Mount with tractors and other heavy equipment as part of infrastructure work to repair faulty electrical lines on the ancient compound.

The work started last month on the northern section of the Temple Mount in the area of the outer courts of the ancient Jewish Temples with the approval of the Israel Police and the state-run Antiquities Authority, Israeli and Islamic officials said. Independent Israeli archeologists said that the work left a 100-meter-long and roughly 1-1.5 meter deep trench, and has damaged the site.

"This is a barbaric action on the most sensitive place in archeology of the Jewish nation," said Bar-Ilan University archeologist Dr. Gabriel Barkai, a member of the Committee Against the Destruction of Antiquities on the Temple Mount.

Barkai said that work carried out at the site on Monday - which eyewitnesses say was done with an Antiquties Authority official present - was the most damaging to date.