Protecting and rehabilitating the archaeology of Bethlehem (original) (raw)
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Vicino Oriente, 2017
and the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities of Palestine carried out further rescue excavations and surveying in the city of Bethlehem and in its surroundings. These activities were conducted in order to protect the archaeological and historical patrimony of this area of Palestine, and to prevent looting, sites destruction, vandalism and illegal trade of archaeological items. A provisional report on finds and activities is offered below.
The discovery of the necropolis of Khalet al-Jam'a, around 2.2 Km southeast of Bethlehem (Nigro et al. in this volume), provides new data on the Bronze and Iron Age town which controlled the main route connecting Jerusalem to Hebron, and the access to the wadiat crossing the southern Judean desert and leading to the coastal plain. Intermediate Bronze Age/Early Bronze IV, Middle Bronze shaft tombs, and at least two major Iron II burial caves (Tomb A7 and the Barmil's Tomb) excavated by the Palestinian MOTA-DACH in an Iron Age cemetery allow to draw up a renewed picture of Bethlehem and its environs and give the opportunity to re-appraise its long history.
Vicino Oriente
has been active since 2015 with annual excavation seasons and research study on the necropolis of Khalet al-Jam'a, and with emergency excavations, surveys and documentation campaigns in other threatened sites, in order to protect the archaeological heritage of the district of Bethlehem, subject to increasing building activity. The following is the summary report of the research activities carried out during the 8 th season, in spring 2022.
Unearthing Jerusalem comprises chapters developed out of a 2006 conference at Brown University, the goal of which was " to provide, insofar as it is possible, a balanced view of the scholarly discussions " of every period from the prehistoric to the Ottoman period. The goal was not to present a homogenous view but " to present various, and sometimes even opposing, views " (xiii). This volume seeks to bring due attention to neglected periods of Jerusalem's history, which have been overlooked because of the " preferential attention among scholars … given to the periods of the biblical kings, the Herodian era as well as the early days of Christianity " (xiii). The exploration and documentation of Jerusalem's history and archaeology " have been highly influenced by this selective interest. " This exclusivity has changed in recent decades, and Unearthing Jerusalem presents the cumulative data of both older and newer researches. The volume contains two introductory chapters. In " Unearthing Jerusalem: 150 Years of Archaeological Research, " Gideon Avni and Katharina Galor review the century-and-a-half of continuous excavations in and around Jerusalem, which probably come close to about 1,850 initiatives. Jerusalem is one of the most extensively explored sites in the world, and the excavation and exploratory activities there have " produced thousands of books and scholarly papers, covering almost every aspect of the history and material remains in Jerusalem and reconstructing its long sequence of more than 6,000 years of
31 ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY YEARS OF ARCHAEOLOGY AND CONTROVERSY IN JERUSALEM (proof)
Routledge Handbook on Jerusalem. S. Mourad, N. Koltun-Fromm and B. Der Matossian eds., 2018
Archaeological research in Jerusalem began more than 150 years ago as a clandestine operation, viewed with suspicion by local officials and by religious traditionalists of every stripe. Although it has had its moments in the sun, and though it has been pursued with unrivalled enthusiasm, making Jerusalem the most intensively excavated living city in the world (relative to its size), scientific archaeology has been forced to compete with, indulge, or retreat before the many other ways in which Jerusalem presents itself to the collective, religious and political imagination (Silberman 2001). This chapter is a critical review of the history of archaeological practice in Jerusalem. It begins with its initial steps as an expression of Western interest in, and reconnaissance of, the antiquities of the Ottoman Levant, when archaeologists staked their claim to the " birthright and sacred legacy of all civilized people " (James Henry Breasted, cited in Emberling 2010), and continues with the methodical recovery of ancient Jerusalem through three successive modernizing regimes – British-Mandatory, Jordanian and Israeli. This is followed by a discussion of the recent decades of archaeological and quasi-archaeological activity, motivated by national-religious ideology and adapted to the dominant neoliberal economic paradigm. One of the overarching themes of Jerusalem's archaeology has been its inability to keep pace with popular expectations: the final section will therefore be devoted to absences and gaps in the archaeological record, and to " the thing produced by suggestion, the object brought forth by hope " (Borges 1998: 78), and its role in producing fabrications, false leads and fabulous histories.