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The Moslems running the Rock have been removing and dumping all "Time of Ignorance" artifacts from the site and dumping them elsewhere. Old link:

Temple Mount Wall in Danger
by Herschel Shanks
The surface of the Temple Mount has been controlled by the Waqf, the Muslim religious trust, for decades even after the Old City came under Israeli rule in the Six-Day War of 1967. The Waqf has been guilty of nearly 40 violations of Israel's antiquities laws since 1967, but Israel has not taken any steps to block its actions. Another possibility involves recent construction by the Waqf. In 1999 the Muslim group began a major clearance project inside the wall adjacent to where the bulge now appears. Using a bulldozer, the Waqf removed hundreds of truckloads of dirt (containing archaeologically rich material) and dumped it in the adjacent Kidron Valley.

Please FREEPMAIL me if you want on, off, or alter the "Gods, Graves, Glyphs" PING list --
Archaeology/Anthropology/Ancient Cultures/Artifacts/Antiquities, etc.
The GGG Digest -- Gods, Graves, Glyphs (alpha order)

Temple Mount Wall Collapses
Jewish World
12:23 Sep 25 2003
One side of a wall in the Temple Mount compound - completely visible to worshippers at the Western Wall - collapsed on Tuesday, uncovering an area of some 40 square meters of dirt and fill... Archaeologist Dr. Eilat Mazar, a member of the Committee to Prevent the Destruction of Temple Mount Antiquities, said that the collapse is connected with the illegal construction works being carried out on the Temple Mount by the Moslem Waqf... "No one is concerned about preserving the ancient compound," she said, "nor has anyone mapped, surveyed or buttressed the hollow areas under the Temple Mount and under the mosques... If a catastrophe occurs, the whole world will blame Israel."

Temple Mount in Congress
by S.F.
Biblical Archaeology Review
Congress is considering a bill that would cut American $200 million in aid to the Palestinian Authority until it stops construction on Jerusalem's Temple Mount -- construction that critics charge has been destroying remains from the First and Second Temple periods... Construction atop the Temple Mount -- the platform that once held the First and Second Temples and which today holds the Al-Aqsa mosque and the Dome of the Rock -- was begun in late 1999 by the Waqf, the Muslim religious council responsible for the mount, ostensibly to enlarge an emergency exit for an underground mosque in the southeast corner of the mount. Since then many truckloads of earth filled with ancient artifacts have been hauled off the mount and much of the southeast corner has been paved over. None of the work has been supervised by the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA), as required by Israeli law... The official also noted that the impetus behind the construction came not from Yasser Arafat nor even from Waqf officials, but from Raed Salah, the mayor of Umm el-Fahm, the second largest Arab city in Israel, and the leader of the Islamic Movement in Israel. Salah raised the funds for the work on the Temple Mount and brought in hundreds of volunteers to carry it out.<
Israel warning on Jerusalem site
BBC
Sunday, 26 September, 2004
An Israeli minister has warned that part of a holy site in Jerusalem sacred to both Muslims and Jews may collapse beneath the weight of worshippers... Repair work on the ancient site has already led to disagreements between Israeli officials with responsibility for looking after it, and their Palestinian counterparts, the Waqf authority. The foundations of the mosque are old and unstable and a combination of roofing work on the building and a small earthquake have worsened its structural condition. Part of the 800-year-old supporting wall leading to the compound crumbled in February... Islamic militants have blamed Israel for the collapse, saying officials were trying to destabilise the complex by carrying out archaeological excavations in an area outside the compound.