Biblical past unearthed in Holy Land construction
Pastor Dale Morgan
Biblical past unearthed in Holy Land construction*
By Corinne Heller
Reuters
Wednesday, November 29, 2006; 7:44 AM
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Building a housing complex or a road in the Holy
Land can often have grave implications.
Ancient cemeteries, burial caves from biblical times and centuries-old
artifacts have been unearthed during construction work in Israel over
the years, forcing contractors by law to call in archaeologists and
sometimes halt building projects.
In Holyland Park, a complex of apartments being built on a hill in
Jerusalem, archaeologists will soon finish removing bones and other
remnants from a field of 40 tombs estimated to be 3,700 years old.
Ianir Milevski, one of the leaders of the excavation, said the graves
likely contained the bodies of dozens of Canaanites who lived in a
nearby village during the Bronze age.
Across the road and on top of where their homes once stood, one of
Israel's largest shopping malls does a brisk business.
"That was their village, and this is their graveyard," Milevski said.
When the shopping mall was built "we were able to learn how the
Canaanites lived. Now, we can potentially learn how they died."
Workers constructing the Holyland apartments were lucky -- Milevski
spotted markings on the ground that led to the discovery of the graves
before major foundations were laid.
Israeli law dictates such finds be preserved and Jewish remains salvaged
for proper burial.
The solution was to build around the excavation, giving Milevski,
colleague Zvi Greenhut and their team time to extract the remnants,
which included human bones, skeletons of animals likely used as
"offerings," beads, weapons and work tools.
Now that the graves have been extracted, more apartment buildings are
set to be built over the site, which is pitted Swiss-cheese like with
gaping holes.
CIRCLE IN THE SAND
Archaeologists from Israel's Antiquities Authority monitor all
construction projects in the country. If they find what appears to be an
artifact, construction is stopped.
"It can be something that looks unusual -- a circle in the earth, or a
stain-like patch on the ground," Milevski said.
Antiquities officials in the Palestinian territories employ a similar
policy. An archaeological dig was recently conducted in a neighborhood
in the West Bank city of Ramallah, a Palestinian commercial center.
The precautions to preserve archaeological remnants have often delayed
large building projects.
In 2003, graves from the Byzantine period were discovered during
groundwork for a train track. Workers were forced to halt construction
until the builders and archaeologists agreed to build a rail tunnel
under the tombs, delaying the project's completion by a year.
Israel has also often stopped infrastructure work because of protests by
ultra-Orthodox Jews citing the possible desecration of Jewish graves at
sites where bones were found.
Archaeologists believe many such cemeteries contain remains of Roman
troops who occupied Judea between around 63 BC and 638 AD.
Construction of a new wing at Israel's Megiddo Prison, near Armageddon,
the site where the Bible says the final battle between good and evil
will take place, led to the discovery of a church dating back to the
third or fourth century.
Dozens of inmates from the prison helped archaeologists extract
artifacts from the Roman and Byzantine periods.
Contractors repairing a Tel Aviv high school had to take a
2,100-year-old burial cave into consideration, first filling in the
space where tombs had been excavated decades ago before shoring up the
building.
And workers laying pipes for a town in northern Israel got into hot
water when they accidentally damaged burial caves believed to be 5,000
years old.
(Additional reporting by Mohammed Assadi in Ramallah)