‘Have you heard of Robert MacAlister, another Irishman…an archaeologist? He worked on excavation carried out by the Palestine Exploration Fund. Between 1923 and 1925 he excavated the Ophel Gardens and developed a chronology of the city walls.’
‘Good for him.’
‘As a matter of fact archaeological finds have been made recently in an ancient underground tunnel nearby, but as usual the Waqf protested like it always does whenever there is any suggestion of an Israeli dig near the Haram.’
‘Is there some way we could get into those tunnels?’
‘It’s strictly forbidden to enter into the underground of the Haram. You would start another Intifada and end up in prison.’
‘Certain rabbis have decreed that Jews may not enter certain areas of the Temple Mount.’
‘Why is that?’
‘Because they can’t comply with the ritual requirement of purification without the ashes of a red heifer.’
‘Red heifer?’
‘It’s complicated, but the ashes of a red heifer are required by Jewish religious law for certain acts of purification. Certain Jews are still looking for a red heifer, a red cow, a completely red cow, without any white hairs, which has never been yoked, and whose sacrifice will purify the Jewish priesthood, allowing them back onto the Temple Mount.’
They walked through the Arab market in the crowded alleyways, stopping to look at the mounds of spices and brassware, a perpetual image of the mythical Orient.
‘Extremists want to rebuild the Temple, they’re even making the sacred vessels and the robes of the High Priest.’
‘There’s all kinds of crazy ideas.’
‘It can’t be easy to find a red heifer?’
‘No, at least not a perfect one,’ he laughed.
‘Strange!’
‘There is a story that the Waqf is going to clean the underground cisterns that have not been explored by non-Muslims since Warren's in the 1860s. There is even a report that some of the cisterns have already been cleaned.’
‘So that means the at least the Muslims can visit the cisterns.’
‘Probably.’
‘Is there any entrance from the outside?’
‘Yes, there are, but they are bricked-up.’
‘Apart from the work outside of the walls, has any exploration been done inside?’
‘Back in 1968, Israeli archaeologists carried out excavations at the foot of the Temple Mount.’
He described the work undertaken to the immediate south of the al-Aqsa mosque when two ancient Second Temple period tunnels 30 meters were opened, beneath the Al-Aqsa Mosque in the area of the Hulda and Single gates, one of which was cleared over a length of 30 meters.
Then in the seventies and eighties another tunnel was excavated to the west of the Temple Mount, northwards from the Western Wall, but the Muslim authorities protested after a shift in part of the southern wall was observed with large fissures in one of the buildings in the Moslem Quarter, putting an end to the work.
In 1982, the rabbis of the Western Wall decided to open the Warren's Gate, which leads into the Temple Mount underground. As they tunnelled north they found an ancient underground door that had been walled up. They broke down the wall and began to clear out the cistern, but when workers of the Waqf heard noises they came hurried down and found the Jews clearing the passageways. The result was a riot and the Israeli government put a stop to the work and re-sealed the door, however the rabbis were allowed to continue digging northward outside of the Western Wall.
It was called the Rabbi's Tunnel because the work was commenced by a group of Orthodox rabbis just after Six Day War in 1967, under the supervision of the Ministry of Religious Affairs. It was not an ancient tunnel, but it started in the area of the Western Wall plaza and ran north along the outside of the western wall.
A few years later they had reached the north end of the Haram and connected with a pre-Herodian tunnel cut into the rock north of the Haram dating from the 1st and 2nd centuries BC water, it is called the Hasmonean Tunnel. The work was completed in 1988, when the tunnel was opened to tourists. At first it was a dead end, but later an exit was made onto the Via Dolorosa in the Moslem quarter of the Old City.
‘So you see this tunnel can be visited.’
‘Is there no way into the cisterns from the Archaeological Park?’
‘There could be a way, but it would be extremely dangerous with unimaginable consequences if you were caught.’
‘Tell me about it.’
‘Well, in the Archaeological Park we know that there is a sealed door, bricked up, and this we believe leads to the cisterns adjacent to Solomon’s Stables.’
‘Would it be difficult to get inside?’
‘Not too difficult, but I would be finished as an archaeologist in Israel if I embarked on some crazy scheme to break into the Haram underground.’
‘Let me put it this way, if you thought you would discover something that settled once and for all the site of the first Temple would you take the risk?’
‘Are you serious?’
‘Sure.’
‘There is no problem in getting into the Archaeological park, but number one I don’t believe in such a discovery and number two you’re forgetting that this is one of the most security conscious places in the world.’
‘Okay, imagine for a moment what I am saying is true.’
‘All right, tell me more?’
‘De Lussac believes that when the Romans besieged Jerusalem in 70AD, the High Priest ordered the Ark of the Covenant to be put into safe keeping in a secret place. This place was evidently within the Citadel, hidden somewhere underground!’