Jerusalem is one of the world’s fastest growing tourist destinations, and Israeli

archaeologists have helped turn a quiet Arab neighborhood into one of the city’s most popular attractions. What once was a dusty parking lot is now an enormous pit open to the sky, encompassing much of the city’s past 2,600 years—from early Islamic workshops and a Roman villa to impressive Iron Age buildings predating the Babylonian destruction of 586 B.C.

Soon the excavation pit (see below) will open to the public, beneath a large new visitors center.

But in a city central to the three great monotheistic faiths, putting a spade into the ground can have immediate and far-reaching consequences. Politics, religion, and archaeology have long been deeply entwined