Will preservation of ancient Roman road destroy the Western Wall?
The construction will 'cause generations of weeping' over damage to the site, says one professor.
By Nir Hasson Tags: Western Wall Israel newsOne of the country's leading archaeologists has publicly condemned the Israel Antiquities Authority's failure to object to a plan to construct a building over a site in the Western Wall plaza where a well-preserved ancient Roman road was recently excavated.
"I would like to take advantage of this forum to raise the bothersome, and even despair-inducing, question of what will happen to these wonderful finds after the excavation is complete," Yoram Tsafrir, a former archaeology professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, told his colleagues at an archaeology conference Thursday.
The construction will cause generations of weeping over the serious damage to the site, Tsafrir said at the conference on archaeological findings in the Jerusalem area sponsored by the Hebrew University's Institute of Archaeology and the Antiquities Authority.
The Western Wall Heritage Foundation, which was established by the government in 1988 and is involved in the physical maintenance of the Western Wall area, has received approval to construct a building on the western section of the plaza that will serve as a police station and provide public services.
The foundation is also planning to build a 4,800-square meter, three-story museum and educational institute that would display the Roman road on the ground floor, where visitors could see it.
But the plans to integrate the ancient road into the building do not mitigate the potential harm, Tsafrir said.
"Even the most amazing architect will not be able to avoid damaging the find," he said, adding that visitors will not be able to grasp the full extent of the road by seeing a segment in the museum.
The Antiquities Authority, which serves as an observer on the planning committees that approved the construction, said the area in question has been designated for religious purposes since Israel took control of the Western Wall in 1967.
"Yoram is my teacher, but in this case I think he's mistaken," said Uzi Dahari, the deputy director of the Antiquities Authority. "I don't see anything improper in the structure."
Dahari said the building planners will preserve the findings and allow visitors to view them.
The Roman road is a "dramatic" find, said archaeologist Guy Stiebel. "One of the amazing things [Shlomit Wexler-Bdolah] discovered is that the Romans, and not the Byzantines, laid the foundations for Jerusalem."
Tsafrir 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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If my reading of the history of the Ancient Near East is correct Aramaic was the lingua franca of the region until the Alexander the Great entered the area. Greek and Aramaic were spoken in tandem, depending on who was in charge of the local administration. Arabic was not in use until the Islamic Arabs came up in the early decades of the seventh century. From what I understand up to that time the language of the adminstration of the Land of Israel was Byzantine Greek. The Jewish majority, who lived there until they were expelled in 617 C.E. spoke Aramaic, the language of the "Jerusalem Talmud". Other than that, it took a while until Arabic "took" as a lingua franca in the Mediteranean basin, so . . . Historically speaking, what can I tell ya'--the Arabs are the new boys on the block no matter how they try to put on a "ancient face".
Tsafrir forgets that Israel's Antiquities Authority preserves many non-Jewish sites: Bet Guvrin, Damascus Gate, Caesarea, the Umayyad palaces at the Southern Wall of Jerusalem, Bet Shean, Zippori, Kursi, to name a few. But he may be right that perhaps the decision to build this museum should be postponed & reconsidered. Greek, not Latin, was the global language of the eastern Mediterranean region. Jews in Judea spoke Aramaic, but many knew Greek and the Romans communicated in Greek here too. Finally, Sand does not know ancient history and sources and is not an authority for anything. He is not a reputable scholar of this period.
Aramaic is a Northwest Semitic language not a dialect of Hebrew. The Aramaeans were a people that lived in the Middle East, but later became Muslim and spoke Arabic like many Jews converted--read Shlomo Sand's book The Invention of the Jewish People! Hebrew and Arabic borrowed from the Aramaeans. For example look at the written language it looks a lot like written Arabic.
The article says nothing about the destruction of the Western Wall, just about the (partial) destruction of the Roman road.
Actually few of the people in Roman times would have spoken Latin. Latin was a regional dialect which was used in governmental offices but not spoken by many. Think of Catalan in Spain.
No to No. 4, the people living there did not speak Latin or Arabic, they spoke Aramaic, a Hebrew dialect. And I doubt the "Roman" soldiers spoke Latin. Rome at the time of the conquest of Judea was already using troops from countries it had conquered. (This eventually led to the demise of the Empire) Remains of Roman roads exist all over Europe and all of them lead to ARome. In Israel, there is the city built by Herod, with its port, theatre (fantastic acoustics), Hippodrome -- all borrowed from Rome. Pontius Pilate's grave is there as well. Why save additional Roman ruins?
Now that we know there was a Roman road, and, the Romans predated the Arabs in the Land of Israel by at least six centuries, that means the people who came from Italy spoke . . . Arabic?! Or was it Latin. Just curious.
Sure Roman archaeology is fascinating but we know far more about the Roman occupation of Israel than of the Jews they occupied. The entire Temple Mount has been stripped of Jewish artifacts by Arabs in order to destroy the remnants of thousands of years of Jewish history.
'Will preservation of ancient Roman road destroy the Western Wall? ' At no point is it suggested in the the article that preserving the Roman road would in any way imperil -- let alone 'destroy' the Western Wall. Rather, it would prevent building a visitor's center.
Can't see how the entire road can be excavating without displacing hundreds of families who have homes over the route.