The Temple Bulge
Some years ago I read a book called "The Arab Mind", which set out to examine the effect that Arab culture had on the way in which individuals perceived and reacted to the world about them. I have long forgotten most of the book's conclusions, but there was one statement which has lingered: according to the book's author, Arabs have a great respect for the spoken word, to the extent that once they make a statement, that statement takes on a life of its own. It is, both to the speaker and to the listeners, true and any attempt to probe or question - normal processes in the Western world - is seen as an attack on the speaker, who will feel that his honour has been inpugned and react accordingly.
Recently we have seen a very clear demonstration of this in the antics of the gentleman dubbed "Comical Ali", the Iraqi press spokesman during the war against Saddam Husein. Against a background of American tanks and blazing buildings set on fire by those same tanks, Comical Ali informed the world's press, "There are no American infidels in Baghdad. Never."
Most Westerners dismissed him as a liar, pure and simple and laughed at the ridiculous folly of his statements which were completely contrary to what they could see on their television screens. They would have been amazed to know that not only was Comical Ali absolutely sincere in what he said, but just about every Arab listening to him believed him implicitly. Pictures of American tanks roaming the streets of Baghdad can be faked, but the statement of a fellow Arab just has to be true.
A similar example of this belief that once you have said something it becomes true, has been causing the Israeli Antiquities Authority to tear its collective hair out. For many years archaeologists have been aware of a large bulge half-way up the wall at the southern end of the Haram es-Sharif. No one is sure when the bulge first started: a study done in 1974 mentions it and there is a rather poor photograph of the same date which appears to show it, but it has steadily grown larger over the years. It now measures about 70 feet across, 35 feet high and protrudes some 16 inches from the line of the wall.
Last year engineers working for the Israeli Antiquities Authority announced that the bulge had increased by half an inch in the previous twelve months. Although this is not a huge amount, it is an indication that the bulge is not a stable feature. Beyond a certain point the bulge would pass the point of no return and collapse with catastrophic suddenness, bringing with it much of the south wall and possibly the al-Aqsa mosque which it supports. It was, the engineers declared, essential that something be done to rectify the situation.
Unfortunately the Arab authorities who control the Temple Mount, the Waqf, chose to see this as a blatant attempt on the part of the Israelis to interfere in their affairs. "The goal is control," declared Isam Awad, the head engineer for the Waqf, before blandly declaring that there was no problem whatsoever. The bulge, he claimed, was "a cosmetic problem".
Naturally every Arab believed him and any suggestion that the Israelis might try to repair the wall brought threats of rioting. One Israeli security official confided his fears that if the wall were to collapse during Ramadan, the result would be a third world war. It took a year of negotiations before the Waqf agreed to allow an independent survey of the problem by Raef Nijam, a Jordanian engineer who has done previous restoration work on the Temple Mount.
The first step was to examine the construction of the wall, and Nijam drilled five cores in and around the bulge. They revealed that, like most Roman masonry, the wall is made up of two parallel walls of carefully cut stone. The gap between the walls is filled with a mixture of rubble and lime mortar. This provides a remarkably stable structure, but it is known that over time the lime mortar can crack and crumble because the outer stones heat up during the day time and cool down at night while the core of the wall maintains a more even temperature.
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| A photograph I took in 2009 showing the repairs to the Haram Wall - a blot on the appearance of the structure. |
Nijam's cores revealed that, far from being a purely cosmetic phenomenon, in the area of the bulge there were gaps of 8-16 inches where the outer wall was pulling away from the core. These gaps are far more than would be expected from temperature differences alone, and various experts believe that rainwater, seeping down from the paved courtyard above, has disolved the missing mortar and washed it away.
Unfortunately the cure may well prove to be worse than the disease. Nijam and the Waqf authorities chose speed over care. (The fact that Nijam is an engineer rather than a restorer or conservator may have something to do with it.) Without troubling to pin the wall - a normal precaution against collapse - he simply poured nine tons of quick-setting cement, popular in mining, into the gaps in the mortar. There was no attempt to push the bulging stones into place. Nijam simply pulled them out and inserted stones 16 inches thinner than the ones they replaced. Hey presto! The bulge has now disappeared - but the wall is 16 inches weaker at that point.
Preservation experts claim that the best procedure would have been to analyse the ancient mortar and fill the gaps with a modern version of the same. This is not just for reasons of authenticity: it is also so that the mechanical characteristics of the new work match those of the old. Jesus told a parable about mending an old garment with new cloth which, being thicker and stiffer than the old, will bend and fold differently and so tear away from the old. A new grout which expands at a different rate to the old will obviously not stick to it for long.
More alarming is the fact that the cement is more waterproof than the lime mortar. If there is water seeping into the wall, it will now hit the cement and flow down around it, speeding up the deterioration of what remains. Give it another century or so and you could end up with the whole wall bulging around Nijam's repair. Even worse, concrete contains a high proportion of soluble salts which could be leached out and deposited in the remaining stonework, causing it to crack and crumble (a similar problem with salts is causing Egypt's monuments to deteriorate before our eyes).
As an archaeologist, of course, I am rather hoping tha Nijam's work is as unsuccessful as it sounds. Immediately to the south of the Haram wall there are the remains of houses and other buildings dating from the period of the Second Temple. A broad flight of stairs leads up to the blocked-up double and triple gateways, stairs on which Jesus must have walked, and then disappears beneath the wall. It is suspected that the wall was built by Herod as an extension to the temple platform and that the wall built by Solomon must lie behind it.
Should the wall collapse there is a fair chance that we might be able to investigate what lies behind it, which cannot fail to be interesting. The continuation of the staircase, perhaps? Houses from the time of David and Solomon? Perhaps even the original bedrock threshing floor of Aruna, on which the first temple was built?
Some will object that the loss of the al-Aqsa mosque would more than counterbalance whatever we might gain, and that is certainly a valid point. The mosque is an important monument for the Muslim faith and a beautiful building in its own right. On the other hand, I suspect that whatever vandalism the Waqf are up to with their secret digging inside the south wall - the pounding of machinery and rumbling of heavy trucks - has contributed to the state of the bulge. Serves them right about sums up my feelings.
