It is difficult to think of a more impressive site than that of the "project to sift through the earth of the Temple Mount" on the slopes of Mount Scopus in Jerusalem. To the north of the site towers the campus of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. To the south, concealed by the abandoned Palace Hotel and by Ibrahimiya College, lie the Hinnom Valley, Siloam and the City of David. To the east is the Rockefeller Museum, the headquarters of the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA). And, most important of all, to the southwest looms the gilded Dome of the Rock on the Temple Mount itself, the cause of all the fuss.