Eilat Mazar is upset that she is not in charge of a small dig at the entrance to the City of David, blasting Elad and the Israel Antiquities Authority for carrying out excavations that are nothing more than a “tourism gimmick.” Elad claims Mazar is motivated “for reasons of ego and credit only, camouflaged as pseudo-professional complaints.” The story is reported by Haaretz.

"To my astonishment I discovered that for over a year Elad, together with the Antiquities Authority, has been secretly planning a tourism gimmick called the ‘Jeremiah’s Pit Project," writes Mazar in her letter, noting that the excavation is only two meters away from the excavation area that she directed between 2005 and 2008. She says that she wanted to continue digging in the present area, but was prevented from doing so "for logistical reasons, since north of the site the Antiquities Authority permitted Elad to build a special events hall," and because of the area’s proximity to a residential building and a road. Mazar claims that the excavation in the area of the pit contravenes several accepted practices in archaeology, among them, the digging up of an unusually small area of a mere "two squares," or 10 square meters, which makes it difficult to analyze the findings in relation to the overall area. An excavation of this size, claims Mazar, is made only in situations where there is no other choice. Mazar is also critical of the diggers’ intention to destroy the wall of the pit, which has not been properly investigated. She also notes that the dig "interferes with the nearby excavations," which will undermine her ability to complete the research in the area. She claims that it is not acceptable to transfer an area being excavated by one archaeologist to another one, without the former’s consent.

Mazar’s 2005-2008 excavations were funded by Elad. I don’t think she would act this way if she thought there was any hope of ever working with them in the City of David again. The article contains more details and the responses of the IAA and Elad. There is surely more to this story than what is contained in letters and legal replies. Mazar may feel a bit like a spurned lover, refused the opportunity to dig in the last available area near her palace of David.

Back in 2006 we reported on the excavation of an ancient cemetery underneath the location of the Holyland Hotel’s model of Jerusalem. At the time we knew only what we could see, but now publication of the excavations provides more details. Haaretz gives a popular account of the article published in Kadmoniot.

No less than 80 graves were found in the area, in which, according to the archaeologists’ estimates, some 210 bodies were buried. Luckily, unlike most burial caves throughout the country, the Holyland caves were not broken into or raided prior to the scholars’ arrival, allowing them to find many whole items that shed light on life and death in Jerusalem during the Bronze Age.
Thus, for example, one of the caves revealed the grave of a warrior of the period. His skeleton was laid out in a supine position, with his personal belongings and gifts for the afterlife positioned near his head. Among other things, his “battle kit” was discovered, as one of the article’s authors put it – including an axe, a wide copper belt and a dagger. Also unearthed nearby were a number of delicate yet whole clay utensils.
For Greenhut, the axe was a particularly exciting find. Some 19 years earlier, in 1987, he had worked on an excavation site just beneath the hill, at the current spot of the popular Malha shopping mall, where he discovered the exact same axe. “Apparently it was made at the same workshop, by the same blacksmith; it is the other axe’s twin,” Greenhut says.
[…]
An excavation carried out at the site recently, in preparation for the project’s next stage, also revealed artifacts from a much earlier time – the Chalcolithic Period, dating from 6,500 years ago.

The full story is here. For photos, see our 2006 post.

HT: Joseph Lauer