Jerusalem news

In yesterday’s post, we reported on the large mysterious V-shaped marks found in the City of David Excavations:

The announcement by Eli Shukron that he was puzzled by the marks, brought an enormous response from people who had all sorts of different suggestions. The Jerusalem Post reported that more than 20,000 people had responded:

Among the most interesting ideas: a torture device, drainage for ancient urinals, the original McDonald’s sign, an abbreviation for “veni vidi vici” (Latin for “I came, I saw, I conquered”), a footprint from King Solomon’s pet dinosaur, molds for smelting iron to make tools, the Trinity, a representation of mountains or the symbol for water, signs to the exit, an alien cryptogram, or support for a wooden structure.

Here in the UK, BBC 4 aired an interesting program on Jerusalem with Simon Sebag Montefiore, author of “Jerusalem, the biography“. The first part of a series can be seen in the UK on BBC iPlayer. Here is a good review of his book.

Arutz Sheva (Israel National News) has a report on illegal Muslim burials at the Ophel Corner, near the southeast corner of the Temple Mount. It appears to be part of an illegal land-grab.

Jerusalem City engineers have ordered that the ramp to the Mughrabi Gate be closed  indefinitely for safety reasons, although there may be political reasons behind the move, i.e. to force the Israel government to build a new bridge despite international pressure to refrain from upsetting the Arabs.

Some members of the Knesset (Israel’s Parliament) have called for an alternate access for Jews to visit the Temple Mount (what about the tourists)?

The Mughrabi Ramp partly obscures the Herodian Barclay’s Gate. We commented on the problems of the ramp in previous posts, such as this one, containing a diagram:

Todd Bolen posted a useful review of recent history of access to the Temple Mount.