Israel's Ancient Presence

"Surprisingly, during the course of the excavations, it became evident that the arched corridor was never actually in use, as prior to its completion it became redundant."
"This appears to have happened when Herod, aware of his impending death, decided to convert the hilltop complex into a massive memorial mound -- a royal burial monument on an epic scale."
"Whatever the case, the corridor was backfilled during the construction of the massive artificial hill a the end of Herod's reign."
Hebrew University archaeologists

MENAHEM KAHANA/AFP/Getty Images   Palestinian children look towards the mountain fortress of Herodium, near the West Bank town of Bethlehem, May 8, 2007.

In 2007 the hilltop mound that was once Herodium, meant by Herod the Great to be a funeral monument to his greatness as a much despised ruler of an area comprised of Jerusalem and southern Israel, was excavated. He was a Jew in the sense that his father had converted to Judaism, and Herod had the confidence of the overseeing Romans to whom he dedicated his loyalty, not the Jews whom he oppressed.

But he was a great builder of monuments, responsible for building the now-excavated Masada fortress over the Red Sea, and the Mediterranean port of Caesaria, along with a winter palace at Jericho. Arabic claims of a presence pre-dating that of the Jews in their insistence of prehistoric ownership of the land are understandably not welcoming of such archaeological proof of a Jewish existence in Israel and Jerusalem.

Herod's most notable building project was the enlargement of the Second Temple complex in the centre of Jerusalem. His rule pre-dated the birth of Christianity; he is reputed to have ordered the slaughter of all Jewish boy babies from Bethlehem in fear that a prophecy that a Jewish baby would be born in Bethlehem who would in adulthood contest his rule.

 

The work he had ordered done on the Temple was destroyed in the wake of a Jewish popular uprising when the future Emperor of Rome, Titus, led his troops to victory over the Zealots who attempted to wrest Judea from imperial Roman control, and the Roman legions went on to sack and destroy the Second Temple of Solomon. Of which now remains the sacred Temple Wall. 

 

Over the Temple Mount the succeeding Muslims hundreds of years later built an artificial plateau upon which stands the Al Aqsa Mosque. That mound which Arabs now call the Noble Sanctuary where the Prophet Mohammad was said to have ascended to heaven on a white stallion also holds the golden-domed Dome of the Rock whose central location dominates the third most sacred site in Islam.

 

 While the elaborate memorial that Herod had built to himself was uncovered in 2007, more recent excavations have revealed further archaeological evidence of the structure in the form of an entryway at the Herodian Hilltop palace, southeast of Bethlehem. A corridor 22 yards in length and six and a half feet wide with arches across the width on three levels was revealed.

The unique palace entry complex discovered at Herodian Hilltop Palace by Hebrew University archaeologists. (Photo credit: The Herodium Expedition at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem)

Current excavations have revealed the elaborate palace vestibule, blocked at the time the corridor was deemed redundant. All such evidence coming to light of an ancient Jewish presence in the area that Jews call Judea and Samaria are viewed with alarm by Palestinians, who refuse to acknowledge the accuracy of Biblical accounts of events, times and places relating to Jews in the Middle East. Direct acknowledgement would, they feel, weaken their claims to the geography they claim is rightfully theirs.

Palestinian officials complain Israel has no right to carry out excavations on the Herodium site, standing on land which the Palestinians claim as part of their future state. Under the 1992 Oslo Accords, so often cited by the Palestinians to support claims that Israel is not respecting the terms accepted at the time, Israeli archaeologists are, however, permitted to carry out work in the interim as final status negotiations remain pending.

Palestinians protest on the removal of artifacts to be placed as exhibits within Israel. While the Israel Museum in Jerusalem which has items from that site and many others on display, states them to be on 'loan', and they may be returned to the Palestinians. Israeli officials go out of their way to accommodate Palestinian claims in the most absurd of situations and claims, even to surrendering artefacts of their own historical  record to an entity which has no historical connection to them.

On many occasions Palestinian authorities and religious figures will go so far as to destroy the ancient and sacred artefacts of Judaism rather than have them used as recognition of the historical fact of Judaism's presence in the geography for the past 3,500 years. 

 

Just as the Palestinian Authority and the Waqf, the religious Islamic body that Jordan oversees, refuses to acknowledge that the Temple Mount represents the first most sacred site in Judaism, refusing to allow Jews to pray there, any historical sites with connection to the ancient Israelites are held to be falsely claimed as authentic.