Last year, Dr Zahi Hawass spoke to Heritage Key in a video interview about the restoration work being carried out at the Moses Ben Maimon (Maimonides) synagogue in Cairo by the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities (see the video at the bottom of this page). With the project nearing completion, the SCA chief has today announced that a planned celebration to mark the reopening of the restored monument has been cancelled.
Dr Hawass explained that the decision comes in the aftermath of Israeli authorities prohibiting worshippers from praying in the Al-Aqsa mosque in the West Bank.
Jerusalem is one of the oldest, most famous and most controversial cities in the world. It has existed since the Stone Age, and in that time been destroyed twice, besieged 23 times, attacked 52 times, and captured and recaptured 44 times.
Currently it is the capital of Israel (although the United Nations do not recognise it as such), the country's largest city and the spiritual centre of the Jewish people. Jerusalem also has a wealth of Christian sites, and is seen as the third city of Islam. The city is one of the key issues in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Israel's annexation of East Jerusalem, which - up until the Six-Day War of 1967 - was held by Jordan, remains a bone of bloody contention between Israelis and Arabs.
Sites of ancient significance in Jerusalem are almost too many to list. Most are situated in the space of just 0.35 square miles, in the Old City. They include the Temple Mount, the Western Wall, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa Mosque.
Around 73% of the city's modern population is Israeli, the rest is predominately Palestinian Arab.
Submitted by Sean Williams on Mon, 08/17/2009 - 18:50
Israeli authorities are raging this week, after what they perceive to be their deliberate exclusion from a World Archaeological Congress on Wednesday. The conference, which concerned 'overcoming structural violence' and the negative impact of politics on archaeology, was held in the Palestinian city of Ramallah. The Israeli Antiquities Authority is outraged on three fronts: that their experts weren't informed of the event; that it was held in Palestine, which has a notoriously bad record on preserving ancient remains; and that the WAC conducted a tour of the Temple Mount and City of David Archaeological Park - even though both currently reside within Israeli hegemony.
