Inside BAR

To excavate in the shadow of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, says Meir Ben-Dov, is a gift. As field director since 1968 of the vast archaeological expedition around the Temple Mount, Ben-Dov, working under dig director Benjamin Mazar, has revealed remains of the holy city buried nearly 3,000 years. Scores of destroyed buildings have come to light, and thousands of sacred and prosaic artifacts have been retrieved—from the 10th century B.C., when Solomon built the First Temple, to the 16th century, when the Ottoman sultan Suleiman the Magnificent ruled the city.

“Excavating in the Shadow of the Temple Mount,” by BAR editor Hershel Shanks, chronicles more than a decade of year-round excavation at the base of the south and west Temple Mount retaining walls. Photos, plans and drawings bring to life Herodian, Byzantine, Turkish, Crusader, Omayyad and Ottoman Jerusalem.