Wednesday, January 13, 2016

More on that Temple Mount sewage tunnel

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH: Muslims Carrying Out Unauthorized Excavations on Temple Mount Claim They Are Repairing Water Leakage (The Algemeiner).

The first link ("claimed") is now dead. Joseph Lauer (whose e-mail drew my attention to this article) notes the following:
It is from the https://www.facebook.com/Aqsai2014/ Facebook page and the URLs for the likely relevant pictures (followed by the offered caption translations) are:
https://www.facebook.com/Aqsai2014/photos/a.168831039829922.34748.155195894526770/1107190179327332/ [“Renovations and repairs in the yard of the Dome of the Rock”]
https://www.facebook.com/Aqsai2014/photos/a.168831039829922.34748.155195894526770/1107260809320269/ [many paragraphs, ending with “the work to repair the leak water channel will continue for 3 days” and a link to a 2:06-minute YouTube video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rsXeDI1_6k&feature=youtu.be, which is also at
https://www.facebook.com/Aqsai2014/videos/1107261175986899/?theater]
I do not know whether the claim about repairing water leakage is true or not. The past record of the Waqf's unauthorized digging on the Temple Mount does not encourage one to accept any such claim without verification. But even if it is true, it is irrelevant. Excavation at an archaeologically rich site like the Temple Mount is always to be undertaken under the supervision of archaeologists and only with any necessary salvage archaeology being done as needed. You don't just go and dig a big hole to fix a leak in a canal. Archaeological supervision and salvage under such circumstances is standard practice pretty much everywhere else and failure to follow that practice is simply uncivilized.

Background here.