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JERUSALEM - The planned walkway at the centre of the furious dispute over Jerusalem's holiest site could be further delayed by the discovery yesterday of a Byzantine mosaic where one of its supporting pillars is supposed to be built.
The geometric patterned fragment of mosaic was exposed by archaeological workers at the bottom of a wide shaft being dug below ground level as the Independent was examining excavation work in thearea.
"We have a real time discovery," reported Dr Gideon Avni, director of excavations and surveys at the Israel Antiquities Authority.
Avni explained that further excavations would now be needed to see whether the mosaic, which he said was probably from the fifth or sixth century, was part of a larger decorated room or house.
Avni said it was too early to say whether the location of the planned pillar would have to be changed. If the fragment turned out not to extend further it could possibly be delicately extracted and exhibited somewhere else.
The discovery was the latest in a series of twists in the conflict over access throughthe Mugrabi gate to the compound sacredto Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as Haram al Sharif - the noble sanctuary.
Seventeen policemen and 23 Palestinians were injured last Friday during demonstrations against the construction of the new walkway to the compound, where the Dome of the Rock and the al Aqsa Mosque - Islam's third holiest site - are located.
The work is being carried out close to the Western Wall, the last remains of the second Jewish Temple destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD, and the most sacred place in Judaism.
On Monday, Jerusalem's ultra-orthodox Mayor Uri Lupolianski won praise from Israeli liberals when he unexpectedly announced that work on the new walkway would be frozen to allow time for people, including Muslims, to lodge complaints under a formal planning procedure.
But the Israeli Government said that the archaeological "salvage digging", customary when construction work is carried out in the area, would continue.
Avni vehemently denies claims bysome Islamic leaders - and echoed overthe past week by demonstrators from Cairoto Damascus - that the excavations poseany threat to the foundations of the mosques, saying that they are all taking place in a limited area outside the walls of the compound.
The Israeli authorities are arranging for webcam pictures of the dig to demonstrate that the excavations do not threaten the mosques.
And while archaeology in Jerusalem is often complicated by religious and political overtones, Avni virtually ruled out the possibility that the digs will discover remnants of the Jewish temple period.
Pointing to arches from Ottoman and Mameluke structures below the ramp, he added: "I don't believe that they will even reach the early Islamic period."
The eminent Israeli novelist Amos Oz yesterday praised the Mayor's decision to put work on the walkway on hold but added in an article in Yedhiot Ahronot: "It would be appropriate if this argument would also lead to the postponement of the archaeological excavations ... these excavations are also sparking the fires of religious dispute over the question of who in fact is the proprietor of the Temple Mount holy sites."
- INDEPENDENT
