(As Lawler points out in the interview below, that factory space is now a convenience store and the hatch to that ancient underworld is in the middle of the potato chip aisle.) This incident would lead to a 20-year legal battle over ownership of the space below and to the discovery of an even larger Crusader-era space beside it. Their work completed, the priests had celebrated their efforts, gotten drunk, and were subsequently discovered in the morning hours by the owner. He lifts the hatch to the space to find a "dozen drunken black-bearded Egyptian Coptic priests in robes" and the formerly shallow and dank crawlspace now transformed into "a forest of stone columns and arches extending into the shadowy distance." It turns out the priests had discovered another entrance into this Crusader-era space–long filled to the ceiling with centuries of muck and garbage–and had been secretly digging it out during the day, their sounds masked by the factory machines clanking away overhead. Some of the stories of discovery in Under Jerusalem detail events that are almost too jaw-dropping to believe:Ī Muslim business owner of a leather menswear company hears early morning sounds in what he knows to be the crawlspace beneath his factory. Along the way, he introduces readers to a colorful cast of characters, including archaeologists, Biblical zealots, treasure-hunters, politicians, and religious leaders, each with their own motivations and perspectives in dealing with the city's buried past. Through ancient tunnels, cisterns, and sewers of the city's layered past, carved in soft limestone, Lawler shows how Jerusalem's subterranean realm has been both a source of mystery and wonder and the site of seismic scientific, historical, and religious contention. It continues up to the present day, where that golden age remains largely unverified and ever-alluring to the world's archeologists, treasure seekers, and the world's Judaeo-Christians. Our story begins in the 1860s as French and English explorers/proto-archeologists, motivated by Biblical accounts of King David, Solomon's Temple, and holy treasures like the Ark of the Covenant, set their sights on the Holy City. Lawler takes readers on a journey through the archaeological discoveries, political tensions, and cultural conflicts that have shaped Jerusalem's dense and layered underground landscape. Painterly descriptions, engaging storytelling, and meticulous research turn what could be a yawning tale of endless bureaucratic permit wrangling and religious and political machinations into a surprisingly exciting page-turner. Lawler's latest, Under Jerusalem: The Buried History of the World's Most Contested City, is an impressively absorbing, admirably executed exploration of the labyrinthine layers of history, politics, religion, and science buried beneath one of the most religiously significant and politically volatile cities on Earth. His second title, The Secret Token: Myth, Obsession, and the Search for the Lost Colony of Roanoke, examined the known history and many theories of what happened to the residents of that early English colony in the New World. His first book, Why Did the Chicken Cross the World?, explored the cultural history of the domesticated chicken and how it spread across the globe. Science and archeology journalist, Andrew Lawler, has made a name for himself writing unique and compelling books on somewhat unconventional subjects.
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