TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH:

Plan to remove Mount artifacts criticized (Jerusalem Post)
By ETGAR LEFKOVITS

A group of senior Israeli archeologists have condemned Wakf plans to remove thousands of tons of earth and rubble mixed with assorted archeologically rich artifacts uncovered during past construction work carried out by the Wakf (Muslim religious trust) on the Temple Mount, warning of repeat archeological damage at the nation's holiest site.

In a letter sent to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on Sunday, the nonpartisan Committee Against the Destruction of Antiquities on the Temple Mount deplored such action as "an irrevocable and most serious archeological, cultural, and scientific crime at the state's most important antiquities site."

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The piles of earth, mixed in with heaps of garbage and construction materials, have been sitting on the eastern side of the Temple Mount for at least four years, archeologists said, and date back to the massive unilateral Wakf construction work carried out in the late 1990s at an architectural support of the mount, known as Solomon's Stables. The site was secretly turned into the biggest mosque in the country, which can accommodate 30,000 people.

Following its completion, Wakf officials dumped more than 12,000 tons of earth, with history-rich artifacts, at a garbage dump outside the Old City, an action which the Antiquities Authority called "an unprecedented archeological crime."

Concern over a similar, if smaller-scale, move now after the precedent set by the removal of antiquities by the Wakf five years ago, is heightening the archeologists' concern.

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