ABSTRACT
Archaeological research in Jerusalem began more than 150 years ago as a clandestine operation, viewed with suspicion by local officials and by religious traditionalists of every stripe. Archaeology, especially in a city of palimpsests like Jerusalem, where each new building obtrudes on an older one, is as much a science of classification as of discovery. In the waning years of Ottoman rule in Jerusalem, research schools – focused on the study of the Bible in its original geographic setting – were established, representing France, Germany And the USA. A new stage in the archaeology of Jerusalem began with the occupation of Palestine by Britain in the wake of the First World War and the establishment of Mandatory rule in 1922. The partition of Palestine and Israel’s War of Independence brought the heart of ancient Jerusalem under Jordanian rule. Jerusalem’s archaeology, which has never succeeded in establishing an independent research program, is burdened by the sheer weight of public expectations.
