explains, crouching down to pull back a lumpy
sandbag, revealing a smooth white surface. “And
this is a portion of the marble floor.”
We are standing in a fifth-century church built
to commemorate the site where Jesus is said to
have cured a blind man near the Pool of Siloam.
The sanctuary fell out of use, its roof eventually
collapsed, and the ancient building over time
joined the city’s vast underground realm.
For Uziel the church is more than cool. It’s also
the latest complication in one of the world’s most
expensive and controversial archaeological proj-
ects. His mission is to unearth a 2,000-year-old,
2,000-foot-long street that once conveyed pil-
grims, merchants, and other visitors to one of the
wonders of ancient Palestine: the Jewish Temple.
Choked with debris during the fiery destruction
of the city by Roman forces in A.D. 70, this mon-
umental path disappeared from view.
“Because of the church, we have to change
direction,” says Uziel. “You never know what you
are going to hit.” He already has bumped into
Jewish ritual baths, a late Roman building, and
the foundations of an early Islamic palace. Each
has to be mapped and studied, and a detour
found or a path made by removing the obstacle
or drilling through the impediment.
When the British excavators burrowed their
way into the church, tunneling was common.
Today, except under special circumstances,
it is seen as both dangerous and unscientific.
Here, however, excavating from the surface
down is impractical, given that people live just
yards above. Instead, an army of engineers and
construction workers, toiling 16 hours a day in
two shifts, is boring a horizontal shaft under
the spine of the ridge. As they move forward,
Uziel and his team laboriously dig out earth
from the top of each newly exposed section to
the bottom, retrieving pottery, coins, and other
artifacts. Whether this method is scientifically
sound depends on which Israeli archaeologist
you ask. For some it’s revolutionary; for others
it’s deeply misguided.
Tunnel workers battle unstable soil that has
led to cave-ins, while residents living above
complain of damage to their homes. The ambi-
tious project, funded largely by a Jewish settler
organization, is in a particularly sensitive spot
in East Jerusalem, the area of the city annexed
by Israel in 1967 that much of the world con-
siders occupied territory. (Most excavation in
such territory is illegal under international law.)
Called Wadi Hilweh by Palestinians, for Jews
this is the City of David, the place where King
David created the first Israelite capital.
Uziel leads me back through the narrow pas-
sage, and we emerge into a completed portion of
the new tunnel. In the sudden glare I’m almost
clobbered by a plastic bucket filled with earth
sailing by on an overhead conveyor belt. Unlike
the dark and dank British shaft, this one is braced
in shiny steel and resembles a subway line in size
and shape. Instead of tracks, however, ancient
limestone steps gleam into the distance. “Some
of these stones seem virtually untouched,” the
archaeologist marvels as we stroll up the broad
stairs. “This was the main street of early Roman
Jerusalem. Pilgrims purified themselves at the
pool and then made their way up to the Temple.”
The path proved short-lived. Unearthed coins
suggest that a notorious gentile oversaw con-
struction of the monumental staircase around
A.D. 30, a Roman prefect best known for ordering
the Crucifixion of Jesus: Pontius Pilate.46 NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC