Out of Context: “Backdirt” Privatization and Contested Space in East Jerusalem

Abstract

ABSTRACT Within the social, religious, and political context of present-day Jerusalem, soil is meaningful and marketable. This is evident in the Temple Mount Sifting Project, an archaeological tourist venture in occupied East Jerusalem. There, for almost two decades, archaeologists and many thousands of visitors have sieved through tons of earth—construction debris from building works on the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif that were undertaken without archaeological supervision. The Sifting Project has recovered thousands of finds and, yet, come under scrutiny from an archaeological practice point of view, particularly, because the material is out of context. Even though the debris itself is treated and presented as archaeological soil, “backdirt,” it does not actually derive from a controlled excavation. How, then, is the material different from construction debris from other building sites where it would be treated as modern waste, rather than a gateway to the past? Within the soil the Sifting Project is concerned with, the worlds of archaeology, religion, and politics collide. This contribution examines the concept of backdirt within the contexts of archaeological practice, politics, and the heritage industry in occupied East Jerusalem.