The Buried History of the World’s Most Contested City
Andrew Lawler, Author
Journalist and Asheville resident Andrew Lawler visited Jerusalem several times before he learned how vast was the subterranean world of tunnels, caves, cisterns and other spaces beneath the ancient city. “In one case, the little grocery store I visited in the Old City’s Christian Quarter—where I usually stayed—turned out to have a massive Crusader hall accessible through a hatch in the potato chip aisle,” Lawler says. In his latest book, Under Jerusalem, Lawler delves into the last 150 years of archaeological history in the city, interviewing archaeologists, residents and scholars.
The storied city attracts its share of eccentric characters. “My favorite was the British aristocrat who arrived a century ago with a big team of psychics and poets that lacked only an archaeologist,” Lawler says. “He sought the Ark of the Covenant, and bribed a guard to dig at the holiest Muslim site in the city—and nearly did not make it out of Jerusalem alive.”
Besides the explorers and artifacts, however, are the difficulties reflected in the superlative of the book’s title, and, Lawler says, exploration is not likely to soften, any time soon, animosities among the Jews, Muslims and Christians who each claim Jerusalem as their own. “But science does provide an alternative story that allows for an appreciation of Jerusalem’s incredible richness,” he says. “That could, someday, serve as the basis for a new and more peaceful way of viewing the world’s most contested city.”
Under Jerusalem: The Buried History of the World’s Most Contested City, November, 2021, history, hardcover, $32.50, by Andrew Lawler, and published by Doubleday, NY, NY. Find the book at regional bookstores including City Lights Bookstore in Sylva.
