Western Wall Heritage Center a threat to Jerusalem's Roman History?

Submitted by Ann on Wed, 11/18/2009 - 19:47

Madaba Map Jerusalem One of Israel's leading archaeologists has publicly condemned the Israel Antiquities Authority's failure to object to a plan to construct a part of the Western Wall Heritage Center over a site where a well-preserved ancient Roman road was recently excavated. The construction area has been designated for religious purposes since Israel took control of the Western Wall in 1967. The building would include a 4,800-square meter, three-story museum and educational institute that would display the Roman road on the ground floor, but Yoram Tsafir told Haaretz.com even the most amazing architect will not be able to avoid damaging the find and visitors need to be able to see the entire road - not just a fragment - to appreciate it.

The street known as the Eastern Cardo or the Valley Cardo appears on the Madaba Map - dated to 565Ad one of the oldest detailed cartographic documents in the world - and began at the Damascus Gate in the north and led south, running the lenght of the channel in the Tyropoeon Valley. Excavated in 2007, the colonnaded street was paved with large flagstones that were set in place diagonally, in the customary method of the Roman world, which was probably meant to prevent wagons from slipping. A drainage system was installed below the flagstones.

The Roman-Byzantine road in the Western Wall plaza is indeed an important find according to archaeologist Guy Stiebel: "One of the amazing things discovered is that the Romans, and not the Byzantines, laid the foundations for Jerusalem."

At an archaeological conference in Jerusalem, Tsafrir - a former archaeology professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem - argued that the construction is being approved because the findings are not from a period of Jewish rule over Jerusalem. "One day, we can hope, the entire length of the road might be revealed," he said. "That will be able to happen when more enlightened groups run the city and the country and the cultural treasures that are in it - those that understand that even monuments that aren't Jewish have significance."

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Ann Wuyts (follow me: e-mail or

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Last three pieces by this author:

Unique Iron Age Hoard goes on display at Ipswich Museum | Royal Artefacts - Including King Tut's Golden Trumpet - Returned to Egyptian Museum Cairo | SCA releases full list of treasures missing from the Cairo Museum

Ann 'Vint' Wuyts is looking after the Heritage Key community and avatar health & entertainment. She is slightly fascinated by everything to do with 3D technology and what's commonly defined as 'Web 2.0'. When she grows up, Ann - eventually - wants to be a mummy. Favourite game: Buzzword Bingo /…

Comments

Western Wall:

Jews often throng the Western Wall and engage in sorrowful meditation over the history of their race and are often found repeating words of the Seventy-ninth Psalm. Particularly on Fridays, Jews congregate in large numbers to kiss the sacred stones of the wall and weep outside the precincts. This was what the history I know about the western wall, I don't know much about the Jews and so got some good knowledge about them from the blog. Thanks and enjoyed visiting your blog.

Tue, 01-03-2011 10:33

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