Are cultural events damaging Old City?

National park concert sparks controversy.

By ETGAR LEFKOVITS
old city 224.88 (photo credit: Ariel Jerezolimski [file])
old city 224.88
(photo credit: Ariel Jerezolimski [file])
Should a national park alongside the walls of the Old City which is home to fragile archeological remains be used for concerts and other cultural activities? That is the question at the heart of a bitter debate between Israel's state-run archeological body, which approved such an event this week, and an archeologist who is working on preparing the excavations at the site for publication. The Israel Antiquities Authority, which is charged by law with the supervision and preservation of antiquities sites in the country, said that the construction of a scaffolding with a podium and seats for the Wednesday night concert at the park near the Jaffa Gate was both authorized and supervised. "The work was carried out under our supervision, and did not deviate in any way from our instructions," said Yuval Baruch, the Jerusalem regional archeologist of the Antiquities Authority. He said that no archeological damage was caused to the site whatsoever, and suggested that the park could be used for future events. "All of Jerusalem is one archeological site, and we do not intend to close down the city," Baruch said. "We are happy that people are coming to Jerusalem, and we are not going to block cultural activity in the city." But the archeologist who is detailing the fragile finds at the site warned that such events could lead to archeological destruction in the future as a result of the stress of construction. "This is an area with very fragile archeological remains, and if shows are held there on a regular basis, the archeological remains can be permanently destroyed," said Dr. Shimon Gibson, Adjunct Professor of Archaeology, University of North Carolina at Charlotte and a Senior Fellow at Jerusalem's Albright Institute of Archaeological Research. He noted that "very fragile" remains at the area include a city gate that led to the palace of Herod the Great and a house with plastered floors and raised platforms from the Iron Age (7th-6th centuries BCE) "You wouldn't build an auditorium on top of the Parthenon in Athens," he said. The archaeologist of the state-run Israel National Parks Authority, Dr. Zvika Tsuk, said Thursday that he agreed with his colleagues at the Antiquities Authority that there was no archeological damage done to the site.