I’m struggling to keep up with the Israeli
archaeologist as he slips his thin frame easily
through the twisting and narrow tunnel stud-
ded with protruding rock. With only the light
of our smartphones to guide us, I bend low to
prevent my battered yellow hard hat from scrap-
ing the stone overhead. Then he stops abruptly.
“I’m going to show you something cool.”
The cramped passage lies beneath a rocky
spur of land jutting south from Jerusalem’s Old
City. The narrow ridge, the site of early Jerusa-
lem and today packed with houses occupied
mostly by Palestinian residents, conceals a sub-
terranean labyrinth of natural caves, Canaanite
water channels, Judaean tunnels, and Roman
quarries. This particular passage is of more
recent vintage than most, having been hewed
by two British archaeologists in the 1890s.
I follow Uziel into a recently excavated space
that’s the size and height of a comfortable sub-
urban living room. His light picks out a stubby,
pale cylinder. “It’s a Byzantine column,” heRIGHT
To uncover a stepped
street that served
as a major route to
the Jewish Temple
2,000 years ago, Israeli
archaeologists and
engineers are building
what resembles a
subway tunnel under
a Palestinian neighbor-
hood. Residents claim
the dig has damaged
homes above.PREVIOUS PHOTO
Below the Church of
the Holy Sepulchre in
Jerusalem’s Christian
Quarter, Father Samuel
Aghoyan views a quarry
that was used as a Jew-
ish cemetery during
the time of Jesus. A
nearby rock outcrop is
venerated as Golgotha,
the hill on which Christ
was crucified.‘DUCK
DOWN’
IS
JOE
UZIEL’S
CONSTANT
REFRAIN.