Study: 15% of Archaeological Excavations conducted over Green Line

By Etgar Lefkovits About 15 percent of the total number of archaeological excavations conducted in Israel over the past 40 years took place across the Green Line, a study released Wednesday showed. The Tel Aviv University study reveals that approximately 1500 excavations had been carried out at some 900 different sites across the Green Line over the last four decades, which comes to about 15% of the total number of excavations conducted in Israel during that time. The study, by Dr. Rafi Greenberg and Adi Keinan of the university's Department of Archeology and Near Eastern studies, found that the peak of academic involvement in the excavation of east Jerusalem occurred in the first decade following the unification of the city in 1967, while the height of academic activity in the West Bank came between the rise of the Likud to power in 1977 and the first Palestinian Intifada in 1987.