What is it about?
This book is a critical study of the recent archaeology in the Western Wall Plaza area, Jerusalem, Israel. This area is one of the holiest places on Earth, but also a bitter zone of conflict, where the authorities and interested bodies marks ‘our’ remains for preservation and adoration and ‘their' remains for silencing. The book is based on thousands of documents from the Israel Antiquities Authority and other sources, such as protocols of planning committees. Readers can explore for the first time this archaeological ‘heart of darkness’ in East Jerusalem. The book discusses the approval and execution of development plans and excavations, and the use of the sites once excavation has finished. Who decides what and how to excavate and what to preserve or ‘remove’? Who pays for the archaeology and for what aims? The professional, scientific archaeology of the past happens now: it modifies the present and is modified by it. This book excavates the archaeology of East Jerusalem to reveal its social and political contexts, power structures and ethics. Readers interested in the history, archaeology and politics of the Israeli– Palestinian conflict will find this book useful, as well as scholars and students of the history and ethics of archaeology, Jerusalem, conservation, nationalism and heritage.
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Why is it important?
Archaeologist rarely describe in their professional reports conditions surrounding their work, and least of all power relations. The archaeologists and the bodies that work in East Jerusalem maintain a facade of 'professional' men of science, allegedly free of bias and 'dirty' politics. Yet Archaeology does not happen in a void, and power relations are crucial for all historical research. The documents and protocols published for the first time in this book, and the language that they employ, reveal the face of this archaeology. It is a colonial enterprise, whose overtly male, militaristic and/or religious supporters live on an imagined pre-post-modern island or in a 19th century slavery estate, worshiping a capitalistic deity.
Perspectives
Writing this book felt like crossing an abyss. The walking funambolist had to check carefully, from close by, every single step; yet keep the far horizons in clear sight. It took some sort of a present absentee.
R Kletter
Helsinki University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Archaeology, Heritage and Ethics in the Western Wall Plaza, Jerusalem, July 2019, Taylor & Francis,
DOI: 10.4324/9780429031311.
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