Abu El-Haj

Translating Truths: Nationalism, the Practice of Archaeology, and the Remaking of Past and
Present in Contemporary Jerusalem

Author(s): Nadia Abu El-Haj
Source: American Ethnologist, Vol. 25, No. 2 (May, 1998), pp. 166-188
Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of the American Anthropological Association
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translatingtruths: nationalism,the practice of
archaeology, and the remakingof past and present in
contemporaryJerusalem
NADIA ABU EL-HAJ-University of Chicago
InJanuary1992 Albert Glock, an American biblical archaeologist who was at that time chair
of the Institutefor Palestinian Archaeology at BirZeit University, was assassinated. Ithad all the
markings of a "professional hit." According to the Jerusalem Post (1992) report, he was
approached by a masked gunman near the home of his research assistant and shot.
The killing of Glock spawned several rumorsin Palestinian society in the Jerusalem-Ramallah
area about who had killed him and why. In one set of stories, it was the Israelis who had
perpetratedthe act. Within the context of widespread Israelimilitarypresence and surveillance,
there were "suspicious" circumstances surroundinghis killing: although the Israelimilitarywas
immediately informed, it took soldiers several hours to arrive; on a road with only one way in
and out, the gunman got away. While the most common explanation was related to the
macropolitical scene, the rumorthat most struck me was far less predictable. Glock, the story
went, was killed because of discoveries he had made through his professional work as an
archaeologist. While excavating a site near the city of Nablus, he "found something" that
undermined "their"entire historiographyof ancient Jerusalem. What exactly he had found was
never specified by the several people who told me this story;what he disproved was never made
clear. Nevertheless, it was the discovery's very power to subvert an Israeli historiography of
Jerusalemthat was interpretedas reason enough for his murder.'
Iopen with this story because it is cast in the terms of ongoing arguments about "archaeology"
and its "politics" among Israeli and Palestinian intellectuals who are involved in, or are in
contact with, the practice of archaeology in Israel and Palestine. Typically, these disputes are
arguments about truth and falsity:one side charges that the other is "makingthings up," that is,
ignoring some data while distorting or misreading other data. It is an argument that pits one
nationalist vision against another, casting the opposition as one between "good" and "bad"
science-between "objective" and "politicized" (i.e., nationalist) methods and aims.2 It devel-
oped out of the fact that the practice of Jewish/Israeliarchaeology-particularly during its earlier
decades (1940s-60s)-has generally been recognized, by its proponents as well as its critics,
Focusing on the practices of Israeli archaeology in Jerusalem's Old City and the
building of the new Jewish Quarter (post-1967), I situate the work of archaeology
within a wider network of institutionsandpractices, arguing thatonce we recognize
that archaeologists produce tangible things, its potential power as knowledge and
as science may become more starkly apparent. By examining one particular
instance of scientific practice and its role in processes of cultural production and
spatial transformation,I hope to raise questions more broadly about the best way
to account for how (scientific) knowledge actually helps to fabricate novel cultural
and political realities and to produce specific regimes of rule. [archaeology,
science, material culture, colonialism, nationalism, Israel]
American Ethnologist25(2):166-188. Copyright? 1998, American Anthropological Association.
166 american ethnologist

as having been a scholarly and political practice integralto modern Jewish colonial-nationalism
and Israeli nation-state building.
In this article I analyze a particular set of excavations carried out in Jerusalem's Old City
following the 1967 war in order to illustratethe far more complex ways in which archaeology
was (and is) coimplicated in the Jewish colonial-nationalist project in Palestine and later in Israel
and the Occupied Territories. Rather than engaging in an argument about truth and falsity, I
focus on the ways in which the practice of archaeology was fundamental to "the work of
rearrangingreality itself" (Sturdy1991:167), re-creating a particular place (in this instance, the
new Jewish Quarter)as an integral part of the Jewish national home. I use this case study as an
angle from which to comment more broadly on the workings of science in processes of cultural
production, examining the practices and contexts through which forms and embodiments of
knowledge can fashion national imaginations, realize colonial projects, and become the terms
and the signs through which struggles for the present are waged. In so doing, I hope to raise
questions not only about the approach through which the transformativepower of this particular
instance of scientific practice can best be analyzed and illustrated but, more broadly, about
such an analysis of any scholarly discipline insofaras it is constitutive of colonial and nationalist
imaginations and regimes of rule.
The focus of this article diverges from studies of the politics and histories of different
archaeological traditions to date. Highlighting historical narratives, scholarly debates, or
interpretationsof specific monuments or remains, such work tends to trace the ways in which
the discipline of archaeology has reflected or been embedded in, and used to legitimize and
sometimes challenge, prevailing cultural visions and socioeconomic and political orders (see,
e.g., Arnold 1990; Dietler 1994; Hall 1984; Kohl and Fawcett 1995; Kuklick 1991; Marchand
1996; Silberman 1989; Trigger1989). In contrast, I focus on the role of archaeological practice
in transforming existing realities and I do so by concentrating on the new material culture
produced through its work. It is to (the making of) that material culture, I want to insist, that we
must pay close attention if we are to understand both the disciplinary rules and the dynamics
that guide archaeologists at work and the power of archaeology to remake contemporary
cultural, political, and physical worlds.3
At the most straightforwardlevel of analysis, to argue that an archaeological tradition is
embedded in a nationalist project is to assert that it has a chronological focus in disciplinary
debate and practice. Following the logic of the argument over "whose" archaeology (Israelior
Palestinian?) is truly more nationalistic, it is to maintain that archaeologists focus on eras of
"national ascendance" and "glory" in the ancient or medieval pasts in relation to which the
nation's present is imagined (see, for example, Silberman 1989; Trigger 1989). This emphasis
on chronology, however, is only the most basic way in which archaeological traditions can be
said to be "nationalist."As I illustratethrough a consideration of these Jerusalem excavations,
the discipline's nationalist politics goes well beyond the search for a Jewish national heritage
at the expense of other pasts in the historical record. There are times when "other"remains are
produced, recorded, and preserved, remains that come to be classified as someone else's
heritage. In other words, there is a logic for classifying the past as heritage that surpasses the
more specific commitment to seeing parts of it as the patrimony of the modern Jewish nation.4
Furthermore,there is a historiographical logic that informs disciplinary practice which tran-
scends the search for one particularnational past. Archaeologists at work are guided by a prior
conception of what history is-of the significant events of which it is made and of the significant
finds in which it is embodied.
Itis out of a dialectic between scholarly debate and excavating practice that both conceptions
and embodiments of history and heritage are made. Therefore, in approaching the work of
archaeology I borrow what has become a basic tenet of the sociology of science: that science
is practice-based. But Itake that insight beyond its own concerns with questions of epistemology
translating truths 167

and the "culturesof science," addressing instead science's role in broader projects of cultural
production (see, e.g., Latour1990). Ratherthan tracing the relationship between the workings
of science and particularsocial interests (see, e.g., Bloor 1991; Shapin 1982) or demonstrating
the convergence between particulartheories and narratives,images, and metaphors in specific
scientific fields and the wider politics of colonialism, race, class, or gender in the society at
large (e.g., Haraway 1989; Martin1991, 1993), I want to understand how knowledge is power,
how it actually helps to "change the reality we encounter" (Sturdy1991:167).5 And in order to
do so, I want to insist, we cannot focus primarilyon the theories and debates that characterize
(social) scientific disciplines, or on the concepts, images, or discursive practices that are
fundamental to them. Rather, we must attend to the nature of disciplinary practice as a
whole-to what else it is that (social) scientists also do in their laboratories, in the field, and
elsewhere.6
In the case of archaeology, it is not only historiographies or narrativesof and for past and
present that are made. Rather,in excavating the land archaeologists produce materialculture-a
new material culture that inscribes the landscape with the concrete signs of particularhistories
and historicities. It is through the making of those objects that archaeology most powerfully
"translates"past and present, that it is able not simply to legitimize existing culturaland political
worlds, but also to reinvent them.7 Thus, if we want to understand more fully the power of
archaeology, we should pay attention not only to the stories that archaeology tells but, in
addition, to the objects that it makes and to the new built environments that it helps to create.
In order to do so we must cast our analytic net beyond what would normally be considered the
work of archaeologists. Rather than maintaining the distinction between professional or
scientific practices and representationson the one hand and popular ones on the other, I follow
Bruno Latour'slead and understandthe work of archaeology to be situated among a variety of
actors and institutions that, together with archaeological practice and practitioners, have
rearrangedcontemporary and historical reality in the Old City's new Jewish Quarter (for such
approaches to the study of science see, e.g., Hacking 1990; Latour1988).
digging up Jerusalem
Following the 1967 war and Israel'scapture of Jerusalem's Old City, archaeological excava-
tions were planned almost immediately (see Ben-Dov 1982:19). The first excavation, an
archaeological dig on the south and southwestern slopes of the Haramal-Sharif(Temple Mount),
began in February1968 under the leadership of Benjamin Mazar. Beginning in the summer of
1969, Nahman Avigad led a second excavation in the heart of what became the new Jewish
Quarter. These were among the most massive excavations in Israeliarchaeological history. As
described to me by one archaeologist, they were the last of the "mythological digs" that
characterized the early years of statehood. Following in the tradition of digs such as Hazor,
Masada, and the Bar Kochba caves, these Jerusalem excavations focused on biblical through
Second Temple times, eras that not only had long constituted the center of disciplinary debate
and practice and the basis for successful archaeological careers but had also formed the very
core of the Israelicolonial-national imagination.8 Likethe earlier digs, these excavations were
sustained by the work of thousands of volunteers, Israelisand foreigners, soldiers and students
alike, and, as one archaeologist put it, they were "directly tied to the media." While they were
not typical, excavations such as those carried out in Jerusalem's Old City both promoted and
embodied the cultural significance of archaeology in and for Israeli society and colonial-na-
tional culture. Furthermore,given both the scale of these excavations and the importance of the
site to the field of biblical archaeology, digging up Jerusalem'spast was also of great significance
to the professional work of Israel'sarchaeological community.

It is the excavation practices and records of the major Jerusalem excavations that I analyze
here. I consider this professional work in conjunction with that of preserving and displaying the
archaeological past and telling the history of Jerusalem in several Old City museums that were
designed and developed alongside the work of excavating the city and building the new Jewish
Quarter:the BurntHouse and the Herodian Quarter(both sites were excavated by Avigad and his
team and include remainsof the Herodian City as well as select smaller remainsof the IronAge),
and the Tower of David Museum of the Historyof Jerusalem(housed within Jerusalem'sCitadel).
As articulated by both Mazar and Avigad, the primary concerns of these excavations were
with the history of Jerusalem during the Firstand Second Temple periods, that is, the Iron Age
and the Persian, Hellenistic, and early Roman periods in the city's history (see Avigad 1977;
Mazar 1969a). Those periods are seen to markthe birthof the Jewish nation in ancient Palestine
and of Jerusalemas its capital under King David as well as its moments of sovereign, "national"
existence, ending with the destruction of the Second Temple by the Roman army in the year
70 C.E. In the historical narrative developed and embodied through the work of Israeli
archaeologists, that was the original Jewish community, destroyed by acts of war but now
revived and reconstituted on this land through the establishment of a modern Jewish state. As
expressed in the conclusion to the film watched by visitors to the BurntHouse in 1992, this was
very much a scholarly search for a national heritage:9
And ifthe archaeologists
areright,thereis a certaininjusticerightedwiththisrecoveryof the trueface of
the ancientpastin a modern,rebornJewishnation.Andtodaythe JewishQuarteris the centerof Jewish
lifeand learning,symbolof the vitalityof modernIsrael.Andwiththe manyarchaeologicalwonders,the
strongholdfora heritageboth rediscoveredand secure.10
A Jewish nationalist sentiment, however, was not the sole factor in focusing archaeological
research on these eras. The century-long Western tradition of biblical archaeology had already
delimited the parametersof inquiry and debate for the study of ancient Jerusalem. Excavating
the city was one of the first projects undertaken by the London-based Palestine Exploration
Fund. Led by Charles Warren, the late 19th-century Jerusalem excavations had the same aim
as did the Fund's other projects in Palestine: to illustrateand prove the biblical stories through
the scientific study of the contemporary land and population, as well as its ancient remains (see
Palestine ExplorationFund 1873, 1895).
Following Warren'sexcavation records, Benjamin Mazar and his team set out to resolve those
same questions about Jerusalem's Ophel (eastern hill) that had motivated Jerusalem's first
excavators nearly a century before them: primarily, the topography, settlement patterns, and
architecture of the First and Second Temple periods (Mazar 1969a, 1969b; see also Geva
1994:14). Avigad's team excavated an area of the Old City that had, for the most part, never
before been explored by archaeologists.1 In addition, his excavations were the firstto unearth
the remains of Jerusalem's Upper City from the Second Temple period, focusing on Herodian
(i.e., Early Roman II)times; this had been the residential quarter of Jerusalem's aristocratic
priestly class (see Avigad 1981).
Both scholarly and popular accounts of these excavations demonstrate that researchers were
selectively interested in particularperiods in the city's past, producing an archaeological record
for those eras considered central to a Jewish national heritage. These excavators sought and
produced what they regarded as evidence of national ascendance and prosperity in antiquity,
in relation to which the legitimacy of Israeli control over the Old City in the present would be
fashioned.
Specific archaeological discoveries were used to bolster the nationalist mythology of ancient
destruction righted by modern rebirth. Such, for example, was the Burnt House, a Herodian
home with what was identified as a distinct stratumof burning. Avigad and his team concluded
that "the house was destroyed during the destruction of Jerusalem at the hands of the Romans,
in 70 c.E."(Avigad 1975:46; see also Avigad 1970a:6 and 1983), determining the exact month

(and even day) of the destruction. They reached this conclusion despite the fact that there is no
accurate archaeological method for dating ash to the precise year (or, for that matter, to the
decade) of its creation.12 Alongside the ash, Avigad's team unearthed the "sole instance of
human remains left from the disaster which overtook the house" (Avigad 1975:47), which they
identified as "the skeletal forearmof a young woman who did not manage to escape when the
house went up in flames" (Avigad 1975:47). In a separate room they found "an iron spear ...
leaning against the wall as if left ready for use" (Avigad 1975:46-47). Within the historical
narrativeproduced about the site and its objects, the forearm and the spear are implicitly linked
together, producing the image of a young woman reaching for the spear in a final gesture of
self-defense as her house burned to the ground-and she with it. To quote fromthe film at Burnt
House once more, "Among the rooms of Burnt House, an even more amazing bit of archae-
ological evidence: the skeletal arm of a young woman, preserved exactly as it clutched the stairs
of the burning house 2,000 years ago. Justwithin reach of her arm, this spear was found."
Producing objects of significance to Jewish national history and emphasizing its attendant
chronology, however, provide only a partial explanation of the dynamics of archaeological
practice at work on these excavations. Decisions about how to excavate and what to dig, record,
preserve, and publish were also determined by an interest in particularkinds of materialculture
and particular topics for scholarly debate. The practice of archaeology fostered a pattern of
historical inquiry more concerned with digging up alleged evidence of the grand architecture
and urban splendor of royal cities, of war, heroism, and destruction, and of the momentous
events in Jewish national history than with investigating the daily life of the ancient city's
inhabitants;than with interrogatingsupposedly anomalous finds, pursuing alternative historical
explanations, recognizing divisions and dissent within ancient Israeliteor Jewish society; or, for
that matter, than with documenting and investigating the presence of "others"(such as Roman
soldiers and early Christians)living in the city or its environs during those periods in Jerusalem's
history defined as eras of Israeliteor Jewish dominance.
Inorderto consider the historicalstories and materialobjects privileged by this archaeological
tradition, I now turn to Avigad's treatment of the city's Iron Age history.
Avigad's iron age The major scholarly debate to which Nahman Avigad responded through
his excavations of Iron Age remains from the Upper City of Jerusalem concerned whether
Jerusalem's western hill was occupied during the late Judean monarchy or only much later,
during Hasmonean times: "When and to what extent was the Western Hill of Jerusalem first
settled? . . . [And] was this expansion of the city enclosed within walls?" (Avigad 1981:1 32).
Analyzing evidence from the smaller excavations conducted elsewhere in and around the Old
City (see Broshi 1994; Chen et al. 1994) in conjunction with evidence from the Western Hill
itself, Avigad resolved this long-standing dispute. The remains of an "Israelite"wall and
fortification tower, as well as fragmentaryremains (mostly pottery shards) dating back to this
period in the city's past, led Avigad to conclude that late-Iron Age Jerusalem was not limited
to the Ophel; moreover, only partof the Western Hill was enclosed by a fortificationwall.
With this major scholarly dispute duly resolved, only one other issue recurs in the scholarly
writings and the popular representations of the Iron Age city: There is a sustained interest in
evidence for the Babylonian siege of the city in the sixth century B.C.E. (see Geva 1994:7).
Settlement, fortification, and war are the three topics that dominate accounts of the city's Iron
Age past-that is, the history of Iron Age (most often referredto as "Israelite")Jerusalem.
The parametersof this historical debate, however, cannot be explained simply in terms of the
evidence found; rather, it must be understood in relation to the evidence (and historical
argument) produced. The records of these excavations are scanty. Because of the speed and
intensity with which the excavations were carried out, much that could have been excavated
and recorded was not.'3 Nevertheless, the excavations did produce some finds-both smaller

ones and architectural remains-that could have been used to ask other kinds of questions
concerning Jerusalem's past. For example, while excavating above the Iron Age city wall,
Avigad's excavating team unearthed"severalterra-cottafertilityfigurinesof the 'pillar-type'... as
well as numerous badly broken animal figurines" (Avigad 1972:197), objects that imply
religious practices not necessarily in keeping with biblical accounts of proper Israeliteworship
(see Dever 1991). Similarly,the significance of a burial cave dated to Hasmonean times found
within the residential quarterof the city is not investigated; its presence is simply mentioned in
Avigad's initial report. It is described as a "surprising"discovery, since the dead were not
supposed to be buried within the city limits. Yet this find has not impinged on accounts of
Second Temple period Jerusalem as a "trulyJewish" and religiously homogeneous society.
Avigad's excavation team unearthed fragmentary remains of Iron Age buildings, potentially
the homes of the city's poorer inhabitants.14For the most part, these finds were not preserved
for display. Moreover, they have been treated as proof of only one specific issue: that "there
was a settlement on the western hill of Jerusalem during the First Temple period" (Avigad
1975:43). Broshi and Barkay, in turn, report the remains of an Iron Age IIquarry at the site of
the Chapel of St. Vartan in the Holy Sepulcher (Broshi and Barkay 1985:11 7-119)-a quarry
that raisesquestions about the natureand presence of industryin the ancient city's environs and, by
implication, of a working class or a slave class. Aside from perfunctory inclusion in the excava-
tion records, however, none of these finds have become objects of sustained scholarly inquiry.
The history produced through this work of archaeology relies on an already existing storythat
is used in turn to interpret the evidence. The key texts and evidence remain in a circular
relationship of discovery, explanation, supposition, and proof. The Jerusalemdigs focused on
the impressive structures, ceremonial rituals, wars, and the display of power emphasized by
both the biblical text and FlaviusJosephus's The Jewish Wars. Both the preliminaryreportsand
the publication records evince an overwhelming emphasis on architectural remains, the
structure of fortification, and the evidence of (often called "testimony to") the burning of the
city by the Babylonians in 587/86 B.C.E. and by the Romans in 70 C.E.15 The Roman siege and
destruction of Jerusalem is a narrativethat accords much better with a nationalist historiography
than do equally plausible alternative explanations. At least some of the evidence of fire and
destruction at both the Burnt House and the Herodian Quarter could just as easily be read as
evidence of class or sectarian conflict within Jewish Jerusalem society during the period
immediately before its destruction at the hands of the Romans in 70 C.E.There is ample textual
evidence for that story as well (see Goodman 1987).
With no a priori narrative,ash could simply be evidence of accidental fire (or fires). On the
basis of the materialevidence alone, there is no way of determining either which possible cause
the evidence of fire indexes or whether all the evidence of fire at a single site points toward a
single historical cause-be that a historical event or an accident.16 In other words, such
archaeological remains can only be interpreted as evidence of significant historical events on
the basis of an a priori story. Writ large, that is the story of a monumental national past-a past
embodied in architectural remains (of public works or aristocratic homes) and "testimonies to"
momentous (and often, cataclysmic) events in the nation's past.
Privileging certain kinds of events as those of which history is made has had implications not
only for the kinds of stories told but also for the nature of the objects deemed archaeologically
(and thus historically) significant. This broader conceptualization of history and of the objects
of which it is made has in turn dictated that certain "other" (that is, non-Jewish) remains also
be produced and preserved in the archaeological record, even if their presence contravenes the
overriding goal of revealing a Jewish national past.
the proper objects of archaeological inquiry The most controversial practice in Israeli
archaeology has been the use of bulldozers on archaeological sites. Among Palestinian officials

at the Haram al-Sharif and the Awqaf, as well as many archaeologists (both Palestinian and
European- and American-trained), the use of bulldozers has become the ultimate sign of bad
science, whereby nationalist politics guides scholarly inquiry.17Critics situate this practice
squarely within (a specific understandingof) the politics of a nationalist traditionof archaeologi-
cal research: bulldozers are used in order to get down to "earlier"(Iron Age through early
Roman) strata as quickly as possible-those eras considered to be "nationally significant."
During the excavation of the biblical site of Jezreel in which I participated, a bulldozer was
used in order to facilitate the rapid determination of the direction and structureof the IronAge
moat; the remains above it were rathersummarily removed. Although it was a joint dig of both
the Department of Archaeology at Tel Aviv University and the BritishSchool of Archaeology in
Jerusalem,the research prioritiesof the excavation were ultimately defined by the Tel Aviv team.
Their aim was to study the IronAge city.18
Nevertheless, to understand more fully when and why bulldozers are used on excavation
sites in Israeland Palestine, one has to consider not only questions of chronology and the search
for a Jewish national past, but also a broaderset of methodological and historiographicalissues.
One should examine the practical logic that guides archaeologists at work and determines how
sites will be excavated and which remains will be carefully recorded and preserved. At both
the Jezreel and the Jerusalem excavations, archaeologists moved through dirt ratherquickly.
They used pick-axes, shovels, large buckets, and bulldozers to reach more rapidly what they
considered to be significant finds. The practical work of excavating favored largerremains over
smaller ones, locating significant finds on the basis of which specific loci would then be more
carefully excavated for "smaller remains"that could illuminate the history of the architectural
structuresthemselves or lend insight into the settlement patterns (for example) of "significant"
stratigraphic levels. Given such excavation techniques, one cannot plausibly argue that finds
are preserved simply because they are labeled "Jewish"or come from nationally significant
periods. They must also be particularkinds of ("Jewish")objects. Forexample, smaller finds-no
matter from what historical era or of what national purview-do not survive the onslaught of
bulldozers. In fact, given the rulesthat governed these archaeologistsat work, Avigad'scomments
that finds fromthe IronAge city were "discontinuous"and "meager"(Avigad1981:134) may partly
reflect the result of excavating techniques, as well as an a priori definition of what constitutes
a (significant) find.19
I want to pursue this broader methodological and historiographicalquestion in relation to the
discovery and treatmentof remains from more "recent"periods by the Mazar and Avigad teams.
I do this not because I think that all objects from those periods deemed to be of significance to
a Jewish national past are treated as being of equal importance (as I have already argued);rather,
how later finds are dealt with provides a useful angle through which to clarify the multiple
factors that help to determine what kind of history these excavations presupposed and made,
and what kind of material culture they in turn produced.
The research priorities of these excavations focused on Jerusalem from the IronAge through
early Roman times; this, however, does not mean that archaeological remains from laterperiods
(the Byzantine period, early Islamic empires, the Crusades, Ayyubid, Mameluke, or Ottoman
Jerusalem) were simply ignored or destroyed.20 From Avigad's reports, it is fully evident that
more recent periods received far less attention in these excavations than did earlier ones. In
fact, the term recent periods is used throughoutthe reports,encompassing everything from early
Islamic through Ottoman times-approximately 1,300 years in the city's history. At the most
obvious level, bulldozers (mostly those of the municipality) were used repeatedly to remove
more recent remains before the supposedly real work of excavating was begun (see, e.g., Avigad
1970a:3, 1970b:140).21
Using bulldozers to clear sites, however, did not prevent these excavations from producing
an archaeological record ofthe laterhistoricalperiods.22The major Byzantine finds in the Jewish

Quarter were the Cardo (the main thoroughfareof the Byzantine city) and the Nea Church (the
most importantchurch of this period).The team returnedto the sites for several seasons to further
unearth these massive Byzantine remains, and both have been reported on in relatively rich
detail. In Hillel Geva's words, Avigad's excavations provided "a new perspective on the
development and urban character of the Byzantine city" (Geva 1994:21).
In contrast, the descriptions of finds from more recent periods are far more scattered. Finds
include a Mameluke pottery kiln and an Ayyubid defense tower (Avigad 1977:200), but the
latter was later dismantled in order to facilitate furtherexcavations (Rosen-Ayalon 1990:313).
They also include a "large collection of medieval Arabic glass and pottery vessels" (Avigad
1972:200) and two "Arab lamps" (Avigad 1970b:136). Furthermore,in contrast to the reports
of remains from all previous periods (IronAge through Byzantine), the lack of specificity with
regard to the periodization of many remains from these later historical eras is striking.While
some specific, apparently more "noteworthy"remains are identified as Ayyubid, Mameluke, or
Crusader, finds from these eras are generally called "later"or "recent," "medieval," or simply,
"Arab."
The preliminaryreportsof the Mazarexcavation present a different picture. A palace complex
from the Umayyad period was uncovered, and these remains received far more attention than
did later ones from the Avigad dig. There is a widespread perception among Palestinian
intellectuals and Awqaf officials that the Umayyad palace complex was "saved" only because
of international political pressure on Israel's archaeological community.23 I argue, however,
that in order to understand why this palace complex was saved, we need to consider the kind
of history that the complex embodies as well as the nature of its material remains.24This is a
monumental structure that signifies a monumental history (and in contemporary geographic
terms, a "foreign"regime) that corresponds to the focus of the excavations more generally: the
discovery of past magnificence and public displays of power through which the nation of Israel
has been produced and represented. Within the context of such a project, recording and
preserving both the Nea Church and the Cardo also make sense.
The catalog for the firstexhibition in the newly established museum at the Citadel (the Tower
of David Museum) describes the finds from Mazar's excavations as follows: "Thisarea adjacent
to the Temple Mount was one of the focal-points of Jerusalemfor much of the city's history.The
public constructions which lefttheir markhere are from two periods-Herodian and Umayyad"
(Jerusalem City Museum n.d.:59). It was precisely with those "public constructions" that not
only the exhibit but also the excavations were concerned. The Umayyad palace structurewas
discovered during the first season of excavations. These remains were treated differently from
the less monumental remains of later periods from the Avigad excavations. They were not
bulldozed, they became one focus of the excavating work of this team for the firsttwo seasons
of digging, and they are described in relatively careful detail in the excavation's preliminary
reports (see Ben-Dov 1975; Mazar 1969a). The most striking indication of this difference is the
stratigraphyof the site established by Mazar and his team. Remains from "four periods" were
found here-the Arab, the Byzantine, the Roman, and the period from Herod the Great to the
destruction of the Second Temple (Mazar 1969a:5)-and each period was furtherdivided into
a series of distinct subperiods. The reports describe the finds and the history of settlement
associated with each (sub)period, including the Umayyad palace and area plan, its use and then
destructionby an earthquakein 747/48 C.E., the historyof the site duringthe Fatimidperiod, and the
end of settlement in the area around the time of the Saljuk conquest (Mazar 1969a:6, 16-21).
This comparison between Avigad's and Mazar's excavation reports illustrates that the
treatment of specific finds during these excavations was determined by two distinct criteria:
their "identity"and their "materialpurview." 25 In other words, the excavations did focus on
and produce evidence of a Jewish national past. But it was no more sufficient a criterion for a
find to be deemed "Jewish"in order for it to receive systematic attention than it was for an object

to be deemed "Arab,""Byzantine," or "Crusader"for it to be ignored or destroyed. Rather, it
was out of a dialectic between the kind of history these excavators sought to recover, and the
methods that governed the practical work of excavating itself, that "history"and "heritage"were
made and a new material culture was produced.
Of course, the whole practice of labeling objects "Arab,""Jewish,""Christian,"or "Muslim,"
of naming a period "Israelite"instead of "IronAge" or "Herodian"insteadof "earlyRoman"26--all
names or "cultures"presumed to have a correspondence in particularcontemporary groups of
citizens, residents, and tourists27-points toward the very logic of classification produced and
promoted by Israeliarchaeology. The persistence of that classificatory logic may well markthe
most profound way in which Israeliarchaeology is nationalist to its disciplinary core: the notion
that the archaeological record contains the distinct heritages of what are identified as culturally,
religiously, or nationally distinguishable modern population groups.
the normal way of the (archaeological) world On November 16, 1993, Davar (a Hebrew
daily newspaper) published an article titled "Conquerorsof the Past"(Davar 1993). The article
contained a critique of the practices of Israeliarchaeology, particularlyduring the early decades
of statehood. Arguing that archaeology was central to the Zionist political project, the reporter
interviewed a few critics of the field's politics and its concentration on Jewish subjects at the
expense of the country's other periods. Amnon Ben-Tor, an Israeli professor of archaeology,
wrote a letter in response:
Agreed:it is truethatthe studyof the remainsof the peopleof Israelin its landattaineda centralplace in
the departmentsof archaeologythroughoutthe country.It is trueand naturalit would be so because,
where is thisgoingto happen-at BirZeitUniversity? Likewise,I agreewithpointingthe fingerof blame
on Palestinianresearchers:the study of the remainsof the Muslimpast in the country is today in
approximately the same place thatwas the studyof the Jewishpastin the countryseveraldecadesago.
ThedifferenceisthattheIsraeliresearchers didnotseekscapegoats,butratherstoodupanddidsomething.
IamsurethatPalestinianresearchers will be harnessedinthe nearfuture-and withenthusiasm-to study
the remainsof theirpastin the country.[Ben-Tor1993, emphasisadded]
The writer asserts not only that it is "natural"for the field of Israeliarchaeology to focus on the
"remains"of the "people of Israel," but also that this model of archaeological inquiry makes
sense for others as well. In parallel fashion, Palestinian researchersshould search for "theirpast,"
which he defines as a "Muslim past."
I heard similar statements concerning the appropriate relationship one should have to one's
own archaeological past many times during my fieldwork. At a conference for professional
archaeologists, preservation experts, and museum designers and curators that focused on
presenting the archaeological past to the public, one American archaeologist gave a paper in
which he discussed the issue of cultural propertyand heritage management in Jordan,Cyprus,
and Tunisia. He pointed out that in contrastto Israelisociety, there is very little popularJordanian
interest in that country's archaeological sites and discoveries. An Israeliarchaeologist who had
participated in the excavations at Masada offered a rather straightforwardsolution to what he
defined as a "problem":"Why not dig a more recent, Muslim past?"he asked.
translating past and present through the city's built form
Thus far I have analyzed the workings of science itself, the assumptions and practices through
which archaeologists produce history, heritage, narratives,and objects. Now Iturnto the second
aspect of my argument and examine how the work of archaeology-and, more specifically, the
material cultural remains that it has made-helped to translate this place into the new Jewish
Quarter. In other words, I now situate scientific practice within the larger project of urban
renewal through which the colonial-national imagination was fashioned, and space was
expropriated, transformed, and reinvented.

The Jerusalemexcavations were partand parcel of the largerprocess of the physical, cultural,
and political transformationof space in post-1967 Jerusalem. On the eve of their victory in the
1967 war, the Israelimilitarydestroyed the Mugharbe Quarter and expelled its inhabitants.This
was a quarterinitially founded by Salah al-Din's son for use by scholars and pilgrimsfrom North
Africa (ca. 1190) and, in 1967, a neighborhood that formed part of the Muslim Quarter (see
Dumper 1992:33-34). Excavations and rebuilding were facilitated by an expropriation order
issued by the minister of finance for 29 acres of land in the southern part of the Old City; once
again, land and property were seized and the Palestinian inhabitants expelled. This occurred
in order "to develop the area to house IsraeliJewish families and to reestablish a Jewish presence
in the Old City" (Dumper 1992:37). With the help of the newly founded Company for the
Reconstruction and Development of the Jewish Quarter,the building of the new Jewish Quarter
was launched. The new zone would include the land and properties not only of the former
Mugharbe Quarter but also those of the Sharafand Maidan Quarters. Thus began the making
of a present that also entailed the excavation of a past. On August 31, 1967, the Old City was
declared an antiquity site. There would be no rebuilding of the Old City without the prior
approval of Jerusalem's chief archaeologist. Archaeological excavations, alongside the project
for designing and buildingthe new JewishQuarter,were to continue for a decade to come.
Rebuilding the quarter raised questions and generated debates about what kind of a space it
was to be. Should the quarter be a tourist site, a museum, or a monument to past histories and
destructions? Should it be a center for religious life and learning? Or should it be a living
neighborhood in a contemporary city? The latter vision (espoused by the secular political
establishment working in tandem with the archaeological community) eventually won out. But
this contemporary neighborhood was not to be an entirely modern space, since this was, after
all, the revival of a historical Jewish national claim to the city: ancient destruction was to be
righted by modern rebirth.And that vision of revival was to be realized through the aesthetics
of the quarter'sbuilt form. The archaeologists, architects, museums designers, curators,and city
planners were, to use Paul Carter'sterm, making "spatial history"(Carter1987:xxii). They were
transforming this space into a place with a particular history, and that history was to be
embedded in the quarter'spublic spaces and signified through the quarter'sarchitecturaldesign.
On a guided tour of the Herodian Quarter, its original curator (an archaeologist) explained
the choices faced by city planners following the 1967 war. Finding a largely destroyed quarter,
she told us, the Israeli government decided to reconstruct the Jewish Quarter. Following this
decision, "the first dilemma was how to reconstruct this quarter: to make it a new one,
completely a new one, and to leave the monuments in situ that were destroyed as a souvenir
of what was before the Jewish Quarter,or to reconstruct it in an entirely new form, or to try to
reconstruct the quarter more or less in the spirit of how the quarter was before '48." The third
option, eventually selected, was to rebuild the quarter in the spirit of its pre-1948 counterpart.
Teddy Kollek, then mayor, noted that some buildings were "of great historical value" and as
such should be renovated. Concerningthe rest, he explained, "thereis a certain desire on our part
to re-create,for sentimentalreasons, an atmospherewhich will recall the Quarterwhen it was the
only center of Jewish life" (JerusalemCommittee 1969:40)-an allusion not to the pre-1948
quarter but to an idealized image of its alleged original counterpart in the ancient city.28Inthe
words of an Israeliarchitect participatingin that same JerusalemCommittee meeting,
Concerningour restorationof the JewishQuarter,the primaryquestionwas not how shouldwe restore,

butrathershouldwe restoreatall?Therearemanywho feel thatthe buildingsareinteresting andbeautiful
enoughas they are and shouldremainin theirpresentcondition-that they area historicaltestimonyto
the pastandthatwe livingnow shouldadaptourselvesto the presentby somehow integrating theseold
ruinsintoour modernplansforbuildingconstructedintothe contemporarystyle ....
I can approachthis questiononly as an Israeliarchitectwho has been dealingwith historicalsites in
thiscountryforseveraldecades.We Jewshavealwaysbeen taughtto preservetradition.Further,in this
land,the focusof our nationalcharacter. .. and spiritualand physicalexistenceis basedon siteswhich
are holy and dearto us and which have manytimesbeen takenfromus by otherpeoples. I bearno ill

feelingstowardthese peoples, but I do feel thatthe few remnantsof our pastwhich have managedto
surviveshouldnow be treatedwiththe utmostawe and respect.[Jerusalem Committee1969:35]
Because of the importance of preserving these "remnants"as the physical signs and embodi-
ments of the spiritual and physical existence of the Jewish people, archaeological excavation
was given priorityin plans to renovate the quarter. In the curator's words, throughout debates
on how the Jewish Quarter should be reconstructed, "one thing was clear to everyone-before
restoration,new with the old, entirelynew, etc ... The firstthingto do was to make archaeological
excavations." The next step was to decide how best to incorporate those objects of past times
into the design of the contemporary quarter.
In order to explicate the architectural vision for the new Jewish Quarter, I want to digress
briefly and discuss the integrationof past and present, of architectureand artifacts,at the Tower
of David Museum of the Historyof Jerusalem. I read that museum's design as metonymic of that
of the quarteras a whole and of the story of past and present it was meant to embody.
During an interview, the original curator of the museum's permanent exhibition explained
that there were to be "two dimensions" of the exhibit: "the architecturaldimension" and "the
story itself"-that is, the story of the history of Jerusalem. The contrast in design between these
two dimensions is crucial. The museum was designed as a "museum without objects" placed
within the "historical setting" of the building and its compound, Jerusalem's Citadel.29As the
curator explained, "Insuch a small space lies [sic] the remains from all eras of the city's history.
The building and the exhibit were to be in dialogue: going in and out of the historical
atmosphere."
This process of "going in and out" is an apt description of any visit to the Citadel's permanent
exhibition. Architecturally,this is a building with a series of rooms (according to the curator,
700 square meters in area) that surround and overlook the Citadel's courtyard. Passage from
one room to the next involves exiting the building and walking along the rampartthat overlooks
the courtyard, now an archaeological garden. Each of these rooms depicts an era or a series of
eras in Jerusalem's history:the FirstTemple period (throughthe Babylonian Exile),the Second
Temple period (throughthe destruction of Jerusalem in 70 C.E.),the Byzantine period, the Early
Islamic period, and Crusaderand Ayyubid Jerusalem. Finally, there are two connected rooms:
one is devoted to Mameluke and Ottoman Jerusalem, and the other is devoted to the period
from the late-19th century through 1948 (including European rule and the history of modern-
ization together with Jewish immigration to Palestine, the founding of the State of Israel, and
the war of 1948).30
The contrast between the two aspects of the museum-the rooms and the outer courtyard-is
striking. This, after all, was designed as a museum without objects. According to the curator,
there were already too many archaeological museums in Jerusalem.Many people find archae-
ological museums boring, she argued, so the creators of this museum had sought a different
way to tell Jerusalem'sstory.
The exhibit consists almost entirely of reproductions of archaeological relics housed else-
where (e.g., the floor of the Beth Alpha synagogue and the Madaba Map) and of reproductions
or simulations of architecturalforms and ritual practices of times past (forexample, a hologram
of the FirstTemple and a model of the Second Temple). Additionally, there is a computer
simulation of activities at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Byzantine Jerusalem, films of the
railroad in early 20th-century Palestine, and, finally, a six-video screen montage of the various
events that led to the rise of the BritishMandate in Palestine and culminated in the establishment
of the Israeli state-when the Israeli flag rises to replace the Britishone, accompanied by the
playing of the Israeli national anthem.31The only two original artifactsare in the early Islamic
room: an inscription in Arabic, and a mihrab (a structure in a mosque indicating the direction
of prayer), both an integral part of the architecture of the room and both unlabeled (and both
actually dating to significantly later periods of Islamic history in the city than those exhibited in

the room). While the exhibit is comprised almost exclusively of simulacra and simulations,
however, the curatoremphasized the centrality of the building itself to the museum design. The
"main axiom" of the plan was, she said, that the building should be the main feature: "Ifyou
take out the building, the effect of the museum is not the same. Ifyou had a new space it would
be a completely different language."
The juxtaposition of the historical and the modern (often as reproductions of things past) in
the museum's design is a venue for understanding the larger project of building the Jewish
Quarter; it is the key to the language of its design. Today's Jewish Quarter was imagined as a
revival of a historical Jewish national claim to the city, and that vision of restoration was
embodied in the quarter'sbuilt form through a design in which the modern was to be "wrapped"
(Jameson 1991:101) in the historical.
Throughout the Jewish Quarter, a living neighborhood in a contemporary city, modern
buildings overlook or are built on top of archaeological remains. The presence of ancient
remains punctuates this modern space. Incontrast to the Citadel, most of the quarter'spreserved
archaeological remains date to First or Second Temple times and are labeled as such.
Nevertheless, they also provide the quarter with a more general aura of historical continuity
and longevity. Itis precisely such an aura that the Citadel and its archaeological remains provide
for the museum design.
After completing my firstguided tour of the Citadel, I was struck by the role that archaeology
plays in exhibiting and narratingJerusalem's history: it is for the most part a silent role. There is
very little said about either the building or the site. No architectural features are labeled. The
curator explained that there are no labels next to the mihrab and the inscription in the early
Islamic room because the idea was to "let the building ... live its life." These features were,
according to her, an integral part of the function of the building itself, of the setting of the
museum; they were not on display. The story told by the exhibit itself relies on this architecture
as its shell, but it does not cite it in any detail.
In the curator's words, the mihrab and the inscription "are not labeled because they are not
partof the museum." Similarly,while labels identify some of the remains in the archaeological
garden, there are no extensive historical explanations resembling those inside the exhibition
itself. Reinforcing the background role of the site itself, guided tours focus on the exhibit at the
expense of the Citadel's own history. Guides talk briefly about some remains in the archaeologi-
cal garden, pointing to specific remains as Herodian, Crusader,or Arab, while tourists stand on
rampartsand gaze at them from afar;but the tour itself never works its way through the garden,
a place through which tourists are encouraged to wander individually as they leave. The
architectural structureas a whole bestows an aura of historical authenticity on the story and a
feeling of historical longevity and continuity on the atmosphere. And that the site's own history
is not told in any detail is essential to the credibility of the story itself-a story that locates
Jerusalem's origin, identity, and destiny in its role as the spiritual and political capital of the
Jewish people.
Were the museum exhibit and guided tours to foreground the archaeology itself, visitors
would leave with a very different impression of Jerusalem's past: that for most of its history
Jerusalem has not been a Jewish city, but rather one ruled by other empires and inhabited
primarily by "other"people. There are remains that both pre- and postdate the medieval city.
But the towers and walls of today's Citadel are mostly Mameluke; they rest on Crusader-period
foundations that form the basic outline of the site's present plan (see Hawari 1994:114; Johns
1944, 1950). And if the history of the site itself were the main focus, guides would no longer
be able to mention casually-in passing-that to call this place the "Tower of David" is a
"misnomer."This popular appellation is based on a fourth-century "mistakenbelief of Christian
pilgrims that only David could have built so large and impressive a structure"(Rosovsky and
Ungerleider-Mayerson 1989:16), but the earliest archaeological remains at the Citadel are

actually Hellenistic, not Iron Age (see Hawari 1994:114). And, while initially this name had
referred to a Herodian period structure at the northeastern corner of the site known as the
"Phasael Tower," the tower that the name invokes-the structurethat visually marksthe Citadel
and that has come to stand for the Jewishness of the city-is a different one. It is the Citadel's
southwestern tower, on which stands the 1 7th-century minaret of what was then a mosque (see
Johns 1950:171-173).
Whether in museums that are preserved underneath contemporary homes or yeshivas or
scattered throughout the quarter as tourist sites and architectural presences, archaeological
remains provide the same historicalatmosphere that the designers of the Citadel sought to create
in the museum. Inthe quarter'sarchitecturaldesign, the present inhabits the past, thereby giving
one a sense that this is not merely a modern city but ratherone that has risen out of the ashes
of a past whose tradition it perpetuates. These archaeological objects imbue the quarter'sbuilt
environment with signs of a specific historicity, not just of a particular history.
In today's Jewish Quarter, modern buildings are built from Jerusalem stone (the limestone
quarried in the area) in order to perpetuate the tradition of the city's architectural form (Gian
1992:23-25). Contemporary architecture is created in the image of its historical counter-
part-reproducing the facades, rooftops, windows, and inner courtyards of times past (and, in
fact, of the existing architecture of the Old City's Palestinian quarters). This is a residential
neighborhood (populated, in contrast to the pre-1948 Jewish Quarter, by relatively prosperous
Ashkenazi Jews) that incorporates archaeological remains into its overall plan. Ancient remains
are housed in the basement levels of residential buildings and religious centers, thus not merely
monumentalizing the past but resurrecting it. And this material culture inhabits the quarter's
public domain-its plazas, its shopping and tourist areas, as well as its museums.
Walking through the heartof today's Jewish Quarter,one encounters the remnantof a section
of the Israelite Broad Wall, an Iron Age fortification wall unearthed by Avigad. This massive
archaeological remnant is preserved in a pit that abuts the foundation walls of the apartment
buildings towering over it. There is also the Israelite Tower, a basement-level museum that
houses the remnant of an IronAge fortificationtower. The museum displays the archaeological
remains as testimony to the Babylonian siege of the city in the sixth century B.C.E., the event that
marks the end of the "FirstTemple period" and the beginning of the "Babylonian exile." The
Burnt House and the Herodian Quarter are archaeological museums occupying the basement
levels of contemporary buildings, the firsthousing a commercial establishment and the second
a yeshiva. Both tell the story of the Herodian city, a time when Jewish life flourished in the city,
a time of wealth and splendor that came to an abruptend with the burning down of the city by
the Roman army. There is the Byzantine Cardo-preserved, through Avigad's insistence, as a
monument of times past that feeds into the CrusaderCardo, into the restored archways of which
tourist shops have been built.32
Through its very design, archaeology provides the quarter with its (historical) setting. The
architectural design of the quarterdoes not simply preserve archaeological remains as relics of
a distant past. Instead, it uses these ancient objects to forge a tangible link with the present. And,
by classifying objects and remains as remnants of ancient Israelite and Jewish life and
sovereignty, it portraysthe present as a revival of those specific histories in the city's past.
But even if the present Jewish Quarter is seen as a national revival of ancient Israelite and
Jewish history and heritage, it is not that past alone that inhabits the quarter's public domain.33
As the Cardo, the Nea Church, and the Umayyad palace complex are all used to signify and
embody, this is also a city of religious and cultural significance in both Christianityand Islam.
The unearthing of "other" pasts (in particular, the Umayyad palace complex) has helped to
crystallize and represent this other part of Jerusalem's official historiography:Jerusalem is a
multiculturalcity, and, as a liberal democratic state, Israelwill protect the rightsof its minority
residents as well as their historical and religious monuments. This liberal discourse of tolerance,

articulated by the city's LaborPartyestablishment, aimed as much against its religious Jewish
opponents as it was designed for an international audience.34
As the language of tour guides and museum explanatory panels makes quite clear, however,
the presence of these other archaeological remains and sites does not signify a multicultural
heritage. Itdoes not index a shared or common history. This politics of multiculturalismis very
much one of exclusion. And in a political discourse in which past and present are divided up
into discrete identities and heritages, the Jewish state may well claim to protect the cultural and
religious rights (and monuments) of minorities living within its midst, but that is precisely what
they are: cultural and religious (and sometimes national) minorities living within the Jewish
state. And in a historiographythat identifies all other histories as moments of foreign rule, the
presence of these other remains does not contravene the construction of the city's identity as
the center of the Jewish national home.
On tours, guides constantly draw distinction between a Jewish "Us" and an Other "Them."
(All museum tours in which I participated-Hebrew and English-were narrated in the first
person plural we.) One English-speaking tour guide, addressing a sizable group of mostly
American (and presumably, according to her, Jewish) tourists, noted upon entering the Ottoman
display at the Tower of David museum, "We were under Ottoman rule then." As her words
made clear, those "other"remainsrepresented periods of foreign rule, that of ChristianorMuslim
overlords-centered elsewhere-who established their political and religious control over the
city for periods of time that would, and did, pass. Throughout my fieldwork, the foreign and
transient character of these other empires was alleged repeatedly to account for what some
Israeli archaeologists considered a striking absence among Palestinians of any interest in the
archaeological past. One archaeologist told me during an interview, "Theyfind it hardto identify
with foreign Ottoman rule."Inother words, they have no indigenous historyof their own, rooted
and centered in this land, to which they can relate.
conclusion
A Palestinian archaeologist once said to me, "If you go to Acre or any other place in the
country, you don't need to imagine Arab architecture. It is a fact in each village, in each area.
If [you] go to any Israeli museum, they take you from this living atmosphere and ask you to
imagine thousands of years earlier and to relate it to today.. . . to imagine what was here before."
This archaeologist failed to appreciate a crucial aspect of the Jewish colonial-nationalist
imagination in Palestine/Israel, however: through the work of archaeology, that imaginary has
been produced very much through the concrete, the signs of "what was here before" that are
not housed in museums alone. Rather,these material cultural "remnants"of "times past" and
historical "origins"inhabit the contemporary landscape; they have become "facts"embedded
in present, and living, built worlds.
Once we recognize that the work of archaeology produces tangible things, its potential power
as knowledge and as science may become more starklyapparent. In constructing the concrete
signs through which political and cultural claims are fashioned and asserted, the work of
archaeology does not simply reflect or legitimize specific regimes of rule. Rather,it can help to
produce them. In this instance, it helped to create a new Jewish Quarter that stands as the
symbolic center of today's Jerusalem, a historical and contemporary Jewish national space
claimed by the state as rightfullyits own.
In order to account for such processes of translation-to illustratethe practices and contexts
through which knowledge actually becomes power-we cannot focus on discourse alone. In
the case of archaeology we need to move beyond the scholarly debates in which archaeologists
engage and the stories of past and present that archaeologists tell. If science is practice-based,
we must pay attention to the work of excavating the land and producing material culture. The

objects of the scholarly quest (be they smaller artifactual remains or larger architectural
structures)are as significant as are the texts, the interpretations,and the historical narrativesthat
archaeologists create. Only by paying attention to the broader dynamics of disciplinary practice
can we understand history in the making: what history is, how it is produced, in what it is seen
to inhere, and by what broader logic of classification it is related to the present. In the case of
these Jerusalemexcavations, a nationalist traditionof archaeology produced multiple heritages,
each of which was immediately (and differentially)reinscribed into an ownership relationship
with what are identified as specific population groups in the present.
Furthermore,it is only by situating the practices and products of science within the wider
institutionaland political contexts by which they are enabled and within which they are realized
that we can move beyond a concern with "science as culture"-as so much of the sociology
and anthropology of science is framed-and consider more systematically the role of science
in wider processes of cultural production and transformation. In relation to the work of
archaeology, we need to examine the ways in which the material culture that archaeologists
make can transformthe built environments of contemporary worlds. Thereby we may be able
to illustrate more fully (ratherthan merely assert)the power of knowledge: its power to remake
past and present, culture, and politics and to intervene in the practices of everyday life (de
Certeau 1984).
As I have argued in this article, the work of archaeology has helped to produce a novel history
and historicity for the Old City now embedded in the new Jewish Quarter's built form. For past
generations, the boundaries between the Old City's quarters had been far more porous, none
being exclusively Muslim or Christianor Armenian or Jewish; today, however, those lines have
become starkly drawn. The (embodied) history and historicity created through the work of
archaeology situate the Jewish nation's claim to the city in a historical trajectory separate from
that of the rest of the city's inhabitants. Today's Jewish Quarter is a space-a national-cultural
and a physical place-distinct from the Old City's other neighborhoods. As one guide stopped
to note on a tour of the Old City's four quarters, he pointed to a building, one side of which
was made of older Jerusalem stone and the other of recognizably new Jerusalem stone, and
said, "This is the border."
notes
Acknowledgments. The researchfor this articlewas carriedout between 1991 and 1993 in Jerusalem
withthesupportof a Fubright-Hays DissertationAwardof the Department of Educationanda SocialScience
ResearchCouncil-MacArthur FoundationGrantin International Peace andSecurity.Earlierversionsof the
articlewere presentedatthe Kevorkian CenterforMiddleEasternStudiesof New YorkUniversityandatthe
Departmentof the Historyand Sociology of Science and the Middle EastCenterat the Universityof
Pennsylvania.Ithankparticipants in each of thoseworkshopsfortheircommentsandfeedback.Inaddition,
manypeople readand commentedon earlierdraftsof this article,some morethanonce, and I would like
to thankthem here:TalalAsad,Rob Baird,JohnComaroff,VirginiaDominguez,Joe Greene,SamiraHaj,
LisaHajjar,HenrikaKuklick,SusanLindee,TamaraNeumann,JoannePassaro,MiriamPeskowitz,Charles
Rosenberg,CarolSmith,and LisaWedeen.Finally,Iwould liketo thankthethreeanonymousreviewersfor
AEfortheirhelpfulcomments,as well as the faculty,staff,and studentsof the Departmentof the History
andSociologyof Sciencein whose departmentIwrotethisarticlewhile a MellonFellowin the Humanities
at the Universityof Pennsylvania.
1. Givena responseI have gottenmorethanonce upon presentingthisstudy,I feel compelledto make
explicitherethatI am not tellingthis storybecauseI thinkit is a trueaccountof events.RatherI treatit as
a rumorthat-irrespectiveof whetherit is trueor false-captures somethingfundamentalaboutthe terms
throughwhich the powerof archaeologyis often understoodand the disciplineitselfis arguedaboutin
Palestinianand Israelisocieties.
I would also liketo add that I presentthisstorywith morethana littlebit of discomfort.AlbertGlock's
murderis notreducibleto an "ethnographic vignette."Attheveryleast,Iwantto acknowledgethatexplicitly.
I tell the story,nevertheless,because it so aptlycapturesa particulardiscoursethat I want to discussand
critiquehere.Themurderitselfwas neversolvedandno one was ever arrestedforthe crime.
2. Israeliarchaeologistsand other academicsand journalistsengage quite often in the argumentover
whose archaeologyis trulynationalisticandthusunscientific.Duringmanyof my interviewsIwas toldthat

while Israeli archaeology might well have been "nationalistic"in its early years, it had by now "matured"
into a "real science." Palestinian archaeology, on the other hand, was in that same "immature"stage as
Israeliarchaeology had been several decades ago (see, e.g., Shavit 1994).
In telling these stories I do not intend to posit a symmetry either between the two nationalist projects or
between the two academic fields. Jewish nationalism was, and still is, a colonial project against which
Palestinian nationalists have long struggled. Furthermore,there is no field of Palestinian archaeology parallel
to its Israelicounterpart in terms of institutional support, funding, or personnel, or as a field of knowledge.
3. The differences between much of this work and my own is perhaps a result of our distinct starting
points. Most of the critical writing on archaeology has been carried out by practicing archaeologists
strugglingwith the politics of their own discipline (and its potential uses) and the implications for their own
work (e.g., Dietler 1994; Hall 1984; Kohl and Fawcett 1995; Trigger1989). Others who have written about
archaeology are historiansor sociologists of science (Kuklick1991; Marchand 1996). While they come from
differentperspectives, all these authors share a focus on the discipline itself and its institutionaland historical
contexts. In contrast, I came to the study of archaeology from an interest in questions of colonialism, modern
Jewish national identity, and Israelination-state building. Thus, while paying close attention to the workings
of science itself, Iapproach the work of (Israeli)archaeology as an angle through which to study the processes
of cultural production and spatial transformation involved in realizing and fashioning the colonial and
nationalist project(s) and imagination(s).
Although Michael Shanks and Christopher Tilly also focus on the discipline itself, they nevertheless
provide a somewhat different intervention into this debate. Arguingthat archaeology is a social practice that
happens in the present, they define that practice as one that "constructs texts about the past" (Shanks and
Tilly 1987:20): "Archaeologistsobserve the traces of the past then record and write about them. Archaeolo-
gists produce texts" (1987:16, emphasis added). As I argue throughout this article, however, archaeologists
do not only produce texts (what Shanks and Tilly call archaeology's "own objects" [1987:18]); they also
produce (other kinds of) "objects,"material cultural objects essential to understanding the nature and power
of archaeology as a social practice located in and concerned with the present.
4. In his recent book Colonialism's Culture, Nicholas Thomas discusses what distinguishes modern
colonial discourse from prior Europeandiscourses of travel, conquest, and discovery. He argues that there
is a "logic of typification"whereby the "distinctiveness"of "identities-nations, races, societies, cultures ... is
naturalized; it is equivalent to species difference" (1994:96). I argue for a similar understanding of the
differentways in which Israeliarchaeology can be considered to be nationalist: namely, that there is a logic
of classification not simply coterminous with the search for a Jewish national past.
5. This focus on discourse goes beyond studies of archaeology and characterizes at least one field of
anthropological and cultural studies of science as well. The main line of work on experimental practice has
paid "attention to issues of epistemology" and "social construction," while these scholars have sought to
illustrate the contingency of knowledge at any moment in time by demonstrating the processes through
which scientific facts are made and agreed upon (Kohler 1994; see also Golanski 1990). Broadly speaking,
studies of science that treat science(s) (or specific laboratoriesor communities of scientists) as a culture are
practice-based in their analyses, accounting for the workings of science(s), and the communities and
networks of scientists through which scientific truths, careers, methods, instruments, and so forth are made
and authorized. (For a quick review of the achievements of science studies over the past few decades, see
Golanski 1990; Shapin 1982; Traweek 1996. Forearly examples of ethnographic accounts of the production
of knowledge, see Knorr-Cetina1981 and Latour and Woolgar 1979; or, for a historical approach, see
Galison 1987. For a more recent ethnography of scientists, see Traweek 1988.) When studies of science
focus instead on the broader relationship between "science" and "culture"and the role of each in fashioning
the other, the sustained focus on and account of the myriad scientific practices through which knowledge
and its objects are made is often lost (see, e.g., Haraway 1989; Martin 1991, 1993; Rabinow 1996). While
such works are often highly suggestive of the ways in which the work of science might produce new
possibilities for politics and identities, they do not generally present sustained and compelling arguments
for how such transformationsare effected and realized. (Forexamples of interestingattempts to grapple with
the question of science's power to remake society and polity, see Hacking 1990; Latour1988; Shapin and
Schaffer 1985). I want to suggest that making a case for the transformativepower of science(s) may require
rethinkingthe emphasis on discourse that characterizes much current work in science studies. We need to
analyze the contexts and processes through which the work(ings) and material cultural products of science
(which include but are certainly not limited to texts or films) become incorporated into and remake the
practices of everyday life. Studies of technology (case studies-or, more broadly, studies of science-that
incorporate considerations of technology) most closely resemble my project here. Treating technology as
"materialculture,"such studies examine how "new technologies are creating decisions and experiences for
which there were no recognized antecedents" (see Traweek 1993:16; for a collection of suggestive articles
regardingthe new reproductive technologies, see Feminist Studies 23(2) 1997).
6. Recent works on colonialism that focus on "colonial discourse" and understand the colonial encounter
as, at least in part, "a cultural project of control" (Dirks 1992a:3) may have something to gain from the
emphasis in the sociology (and much anthropology) of science on the nature of scientific practice. Building
on the work of EdwardSaid (1979) and his focus on orientalism as a discursive object, these works analyze
the colonial knowledge that "both enabled colonial conquest and was produced by it" (Dirks 1992a:3; see
also Dirks1992b; Stolerand Cooper 1989). The fact that "colonial knowledge" was integralto and constitutive
of colonial power is the startingpoint of much of this work, yet insufficient attention is given to the question

of how "knowledge" actually reordersthe world. Emphasizingthe images and systems of social classification
integral to scholarly or popular discourse ratherthan incorporating nondiscursive practices as a central
component of analysis is not generally an effective way of demonstrating the ways in which particularforms
of knowledge come to structure the nature of rule. (For example, Thomas [1994] explicitly asserts that
colonial discourse is not merely a question of images, but when he proceeds with the content of his analysis,
he slips back into precisely such a conceptualization.) The emphasis on scientific practice characteristicof
much science studies raises importantquestions about what different kinds of acts or objects we would need
to incorporate into our analyses of the relationshipbetween colonialism and knowledge in order to illustrate
and make a case for the power of knowledge more fully.
7. While I borrow the concept of "translation"from Bruno Latour,I use it far more narrowlythan he does.
What I hope to capture by using the concept is firstthat science produces new grounds of and for politics.
For Latour,science creates new sources of power (see Latour1988). Second, I want to highlight the ways
in which the work of science-in so far as it is situated within a wide network of actors and institutionsand
practices-produces "drifts"(Latour1988:6) whereby the outcome is never simply coterminous with initial
intentions. It is precisely because such driftsare inevitable in processes of scientific (and social) production
that novel "sources of power" (and thereby, new fields for culture, politics, resistance, and scientific practice)
are created. What I do not borrow in using this term is his notion of "agents"who go about translatingthe
"interests"of others, an understanding of the dynamics of scientific and social (re-)productionthat relies on
a conception of individuals driven by self-interest, strategizing in order to realize their own power by
translatingand harnessing the interests of others.
8. For a discussion of archaeology as a key cultural practice in the prestate period and the early years of
statehood, see Elon 1994; Geva 1992; Kempinskin.d.; Shavit 1987. More broadly, for the most extensive
and insightful study of the making of Israeli national tradition to date and the attendant importance of
archaeology, see Zerubavel 1995. Fora brief but interestinganalysis of the dynamics of disciplinary practice
in the first decades of statehood and its legacy today (including discussion of the historical periods and
questions in which archaeologists were interested, excavation techniques, and recording methods), see
Geva 1992.
9. Nahman Avigad, together with one of his assistants, helped both to design the museum itself and to
develop the film from which this quotation comes.
10. The terms Jewish nation and modern Israel, rather than any reference to the modern Israeli state,
indicate that the "nation of Israel"to which this heritage belongs is not coterminous with the boundaries of
state or citizenship. Itthus belongs to diaspora Jews as well as to IsraeliJews, but not to Israel'sPalestinian
citizens.
11. As tour guides consistently reiterate,this area had never before been excavated because it had been
continuously (and densely) populated for many centuries. In an ironic twist, the destruction of the quarter
in 1948 is seen as a gift to archaeologists: the quarter'sdestruction and then its recapture during the 1967
war provided an "unprecedented opportunity"to reveal Jerusalem's archaeological past, as one tour guide
put it. (As Iwill discuss laterin the article, today'sJewish Quarteris much largerthan its pre-1948 counterpart.
Thus, the narrativeof destruction in which Israel captures an empty and ruined quarter that can now be
excavated before it is rebuilt elides the more recent destructions-the demolition of Palestinian neighbor-
hoods and the expulsion of their inhabitants that followed Israel's capture of the Old City in June of
1967-that actually enabled such work.
12. Although there is no accurate archaeological method for dating ash to the precise year of its creation,
the films and explanatory panels in both the BurntHouse and the Herodian Quarter(a second Jewish Quarter
museum focusing on early Roman times) tell us that the ash found at each site can be dated-on the basis
of archaeological evidence-"to the day": the eighth of Elul in the year 70 C.E.,the day the Upper City was
burned to the ground by Roman soldiers. The evidence cited is numismatic (although this is not clarified in
either the explanatory panels or in the film). Finding coins that dated to the FirstRevolt (67-69 C.E.)at Burnt
House, for example, the archaeologists concluded, "Thus,the house was destroyed during the destruction
of Jerusalem at the hands of the Romans in 70 C.E."(Avigad 1975:46). But the conclusion that this ash is
evidence of a single and identifiable historical event (namely, the Roman siege of the Upper City) is a matter
of conjecture: it depends on what we know from written sources that both describe and date that event,
which archaeologists use to surmise the "cause" of the archaeological evidence of fire.
13. Because of intense political pressure to build and populate the new Jewish Quarter, archaeologists
excavated almost year-round in order to complete their work as quickly as possible.
14. During this period, the wealthy and royal quartersof the city were located in the City of David. The
Upper City is presumed to have housed the city's lower-class inhabitants.
15. There are a few exceptions (cf. Horwitz and Tchernov 1989; Lipschitz 1989; Magen 1994). None of
these authors teach in departments of archaeology.
16. There is textual evidence that the Upper City may well have been torched more than once in this
period, because of class or sectarian conflict within Jewish society (see Goodman 1987). This historical
possibility is recognized by Avigad in connection with evidence of fire at a third site, which was neither
named nor preserved, as were BurntHouse and the Herodian Quarter. He writes,
The period of the Herodian dynasty (37 B.C.-A.D. 70) was represented [at this site] by three floor levels in
most of the excavated area.... The building was destroyed before A.D. 70, perhaps by the Zealots, who
are known to have caused severe damage to Jerusalem prior to its destruction by the Romans. [Avigad
1970b:1 36]

This argument about class conflict in Herodian society is not pursued by either the Israeli archaeological
community or the Jerusalem municipality (those communities dominated by Israel's Labor Party elite) in
their interpretationand representation of the archaeological remains of the Herodian city. Instead, in recent
years this discourse of the divisions within Herodian Jewish society has been appropriated by Israel'sradical
religious nationalists (the "right")in their opposition to LaborZionism. In their political discourse, it is not
the Roman army that brought down ancient Herodian society but rather its own internal divisions. From
that historical interpretationthey draw parallels with what they identify as the dangers of the divisive politics
of Israel's(previously) Labor-to-left-dominatedgovernment and the peace movement. Their understanding
of the cause of such divisiveness, however, diverges significantlyfrom a Marxistclass analysis: the corruption
of Jerusalem's Herodian elite, in part embodied in its wealth, signified a straying from the true values of
Judaism.
17. Bulldozers are used quite regularly on archaeological sites in Israel/Palestine in general, including
both Avigad's and Mazar's excavations (see, e.g., Ben-Dov 1982). While many archaeologists object to this
practice, not all biblical archaeologists do. In fact, many American-trained biblical archaeologists, for
example, as well as one French-trained scholar I interviewed, all agree that there may be times when
bulldozers are necessary on archaeological sites. They emphasized, however, that before pulling out a
bulldozer the area to be demolished has to be adequately studied to determine if it is still a stratified and
therefore useful archaeological site or if there is unstratified"debris"that can be removed. The criticism of
these archaeologists, then, concerning the use of bulldozers on the Jerusalemexcavations was based upon
their assessment that bulldozers demolished sites that may well have contained useful data. Not enough
prior work had been done to know whether such sites only contained "debris"(an interpretationwhich is
supported by my reading of the Preliminary Reports). Nor was such a careful assessment of the area
undertaken at Jezreel before the decision to bulldoze in search of the Iron Age moat. In fact, one British
archaeologistwith whom I spoke was particularlyangry preciselybecause this decision meant the destruction
of the area's Byzantine strata in which he was most interested.
The symbolic connotations of bulldozers in Israel/Palestinego well beyond their use on archaeological
sites. Bulldozers have long been used both to punish suspected Palestinian "terrorists"(by destroying their
houses) and also to realize the colonial-national project of expropriating land and re-creating it as Jewish.
Forexample, in the aftermathof the 1948 war approximately 400 Palestinian villages were destroyed-and
most often bulldozed; on these lands Jewish settlements were then established. Similarly, in the post-1967
period bulldozers have been used to clear (expropriated)lands for road construction and for building Jewish
settlements. Fora discussion of the destruction of Palestinianvillages following the war of 1948, see Khalidi
1992; Morris 1987. For an example of bulldozers used as tools for clearing land for Jewish settlement
projects, see the discussion of the firstphases of building the new Jewish settlement on the road to Bethlehem
in the New York Times (1997).
18. This decision to use bulldozers precipitated quite an argument between the British archaeologists
and the Israeli archaeologists digging the site. With one exception, the British strenuously objected. The
exception was the head of the British School's team-someone who had been brought up in Israel, had
studied archaeology there, and was at that time a Ph.D. student in the Department of Archaeology at Tel
Aviv University, and a student of the Israeli archaeologist leading the dig.
19. I do not want to overstate this argument, however. Jerusalem has been continuously occupied for
several millennia, and building activities of later periods have largely destroyed the remains of the earlier
cities on which they were built. Thus, in contrast to undisturbed sites, much less evidence is likely to be
preserved-particularly when we are talking about "smallerfinds" that may be essential to reconstructing
the daily life of other times. Collecting such evidence, however, would also require different excavating
techniques than those generally used. It is not only through the use of bulldozers that dirt is moved rather
quickly on excavation sites in Israeland Palestine. Duringthese Jezreel excavations, another argument arose
over excavating techniques more broadly. Israeliexcavators tend to use large shovels, pickaxes, and buckets
in order to move through the earth. In contrast, the British-trainedarchaeologists at Jezreel preferredto use
much smaller tools and slower digging techniques including, for example, sifting dirt in search of very small
remains (e.g., artifactual,animal, and seeds). Those latter kinds of finds enable the reconstruction of daily
life of past times-for example, dietary habits, the presence or absence of particular kinds of animals in
private and public spaces, and so forth.
20. Ottoman period remains present a particular problem. Following on its BritishMandate precursor,
the Antiquity Law of Israel only protects objects predating the year 1700.
21. The fact that it was largely municipal bulldozers does not change my argument that the excavators
were less concerned with these recent remains. Having declared the Old City an antiquities site, the law
empowers archaeologists to stop municipal bulldozers (or for that matter, those of private contractors) if
they believe that significant archaeological remains might be destroyed.
22. Nor does this necessarily mean that earlier remains were not themselves also bulldozed.
23. This argument about the Umayyad palace complex is partof a largercriticism that the field of Israeli
archaeology in general (and of these Old City excavations in particular)systematically erases evidence of
"other"(non-Jewish)pasts in the country's history. With reference to these specific excavations, this criticism
is based partlyon the fact that the excavating teams used bulldozers and otherwise dismantled and removed
various finds and buildingsdating to various Islamicperiods. Itis also based on a readingof the archaeological
records and excavation reports. Forsuch extensive and thorough excavations, there is very little mention of
remains postdatingthe early Roman period-and, more specifically, of remains from periods of Islamic rule

in the city. Given the long Islamic historyof the city itself, it is reasonable to assume that many remains were
destroyed or ignored or were simply not produced, given existing excavating practices. In addition, given
the general lack of adequate record keeping, even those archaeological remains (such as smaller remains
dug up with the Umayyad palace complex) that were saved and stored become problematic as sources of
historical information. For archaeologists, the lack of proper records on the stratigraphyand loci in which
remains were found renders those objects difficult to study and interpret.
This criticism is valid. Nevertheless, it is important to contextualize this critique by understanding the
wider set of recording practices that characterized these Jerusalemexcavations and that are quite typical of
the field of Israeli archaeology more broadly. For excavations that persisted nearly year-round for over a
decade, there are, quite simply, very few preliminary reports. Those that do exist are short, the data scant.
A lot of what is dug up on excavation sites throughout the country is not recorded at all, and most of it is
discarded before even reaching a laboratoryor storeroom-another methodological dispute between the
Israeli and the Britishteams at the Jezreel excavations. In other words, although clearly far more extensive
than those for later periods, the recordsof even IronAge through early Roman remains are themselves rather
meager. Good records exist primarilyfor those finds that were deemed a priorito be significant (most often
on the basis of an a priori story they are seen to illuminate or prove). To date, no final report has been
produced for either excavation. While an archaeologist on Avigad's team is said to be working on a final
reportfor that dig, there is widespread doubt as to whether such a report will ever be produced for Mazar's
excavation. For a discussion and critique of recording techniques of Israeliarchaeological teams as well as
their wider patternof not publishingextensive preliminaryand final reports,and the impact of those practices
on scholarly inquiry more generally, see Geva 1992.
24. The rumorsconcerning the "saving"of the Umayyad palaces tell their own stories of politics-both
academic and "real life."Accusations are still rife among Israeliarchaeologists as to who on the Israeliteam
wanted them demolished and who was responsible for their preservation: was Meir Ben-Dov or Benjamin
Mazar more "liberal" and more "professional"?Furthermore, according to Ben-Dov, employees of the
Haram and the Awqaf became more and more accepting of the excavations as they watched the Israeliteam
at work on the Umayyad structures.As he saw it, increasing acceptance and respect for the Israeliteam was
demonstrated by the fact that "Muslim officials" began to visit the site more and more frequently and to
discuss the progress of the excavations with him. According to one such Muslim official I interviewed,
however, it was not a growing sense of trust that precipitated this change of attitude, but rathera gradual
adjustment to the realities of living under Israeli occupation and the possibilities for resisting Israeli rule.
"Whether we liked it or not," he said, "we came to realize that we couldn't achieve anything through that
kind of a confrontation. We couldn't use muscle. So we started to handle them differently, to be nice to
them and to use the conflicts between the various archaeologists to get what we needed. So Ben-Dov would
come, and we would be nice to him. We would then go to an enemy of his and stir things up."
25. I want to emphasize that I am talking about their treatment during the work of excavating and
reporting. In subsequent scholarly treatment of these finds, the chronology and national and religious
classification of the objects and sites emerges as the most importantcriterion. There is little scholarly debate
in Israeliarchaeological journals (the IsraelExplorationJournal,for example) about periods postdating early
Roman Jerusalem.The vast majorityof journal articles in IEJdeal with the IronAge city up until the year 70
C.E. Between 1967 and 1990, five articles were published in IEJdealingwith Jerusalemin the various Islamic
periods, only two of which relied on or investigated the archaeological data generated by these Old City
digs. Jerusalem'sChristianperiods have received the same treatment:of five published articles only two use
archaeological evidence from any of the Old City excavations. In contrast, there were 28 articles on the
history of Jerusalem from the Iron Age through the early Roman period, 14 of which consider the
archaeological remains from these excavations.
26. There is no semantic distinction in Hebrew between Israeli and Israelitewhen used as adjectives.
Both are Yisraeli/t.
27. I use the word residents because that is the current legal status of Palestinians from EastJerusalem.
28. The Jerusalem Committee was an international conference convened three times in the late 1960s
and early 1970s to discuss the futureof the city of Jerusalem.Inconvening an internationalgroup of architects
and city planners (and some Israeliarchaeologists), the organizers held these meetings as part of building
an international consensus over Israel's right to control the "unified" city, with the Jewish state becoming
the protector of Christian and Muslim religious sites. Throughout the minutes to these meetings, the
distinction is constantly drawn between a Jewish national rightto the city and other nonnational cultural or
religious claims to specific sites and monuments.
29. The Citadel is not located in what is designated as the Jewish Quarter itself. It stands along the city
wall, adjacent to the JaffaGate.
30. I am using the museum's names for classifying the different eras in the city's history.
31. According to the curator, the exhibit ends with the year 1948 because there is another museum in
the city (The Tourjeman Post) that tells the story of the divided city (1948-67). Nevertheless, Jerusalem's
history between 1948 and 1967 is not totally excluded from either the exhibit itself or from the narratives
of tour guides at the Tower of David Museum. Tourguides constantly discuss the period of the city's division,
encouraging participantsto peer through the openings in the fortification wall-through which Jordanian
soldiers, we are told, would take potshots. This experience of insecurity can never be repeated for the Israeli
state, declare the guides. Furthermore,if the exhibit is supposed to tell the story of Jerusalemonly up until
1948, the final video-montage is anachronistic, because in 1948 the Israeliflag did not fly over Jerusalem's

Old City. Finally, placed outside the rubric of the exhibit itself, at the exit from the final room, there are two
photographs of the divided city with accompanying placards that read, "Jerusalemis an inseparable part of
the State of Israel and its eternal capital" and "Jerusalemwas divided for 19 years. The Easterncity was
annexed to the JordanianKingdom and West Jerusalem became the capital of Israel."
32. The CrusaderCardo also forms one of the main thoroughfares in today's Muslim Quarter. Only the
portion in the Jewish Quarter has been restored.
33. There are also "Jewish sites" far more recent than Herodian period remains such as the Hurva
synagogue (preserved as a monument to its destruction) and four partiallyrestored Sephardi synagogues (all
of which were in use until the war of 1948). For the sake of brevity, I will not discuss them here.
34. See the minutes of the Jerusalem City Council meetings over the summer of 1967, especially the
special session on Jerusalem (JerusalemCity Council 1967a-d). This political discourse of the Jerusalem
municipality as the protector of a multicultural and multireligious city is not aimed at an international
audience alone. It becomes clear in these minutes that the liberal politics of multiculturalism is aimed
primarily at Kollek's and the Labor Party's staunchest Israeli-Jewishopponents: representatives of the
religious parties on the Jerusalem city council who were pushing to make this city a truly "Jewish"city,
subject to the dictates of religious law. The defense of the cultural and religious rightsof "minorities"(Arab,
or Christianand Muslim) became one way to protect secular Jews themselves from having to live according
to religious law.
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submitted March 25, 1996

accepted December 4, 1996

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Translating Truths: Nationalism, the Practice of Archaeology, and the Remaking of Past and

Present in Contemporary Jerusalem

NADIA ABU EL-HAJ-University of Chicago

American Ethnologist25(2):166-188. Copyright? 1998, American Anthropological Association.

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translating past and present through the city's built form

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Concerningour restorationof the JewishQuarter,the primaryquestionwas not how shouldwe restore,

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submitted March 25, 1996

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