Parker expedition

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The members of the expedition (from left) Robin Duff, Habip Bey, Montagu Parker, Cyril Foley, Hagop Makasdar, Cyril Ward, Abdulaziz Mecdi Effendi, Clarence Wilson, around 1909

The Parker expedition was an irregular archaeological excavation from 1909 to 1911 with the aim of looting the fabulous treasure of King Solomon , optionally also the Ark of the Covenant , in Jerusalem .

Preparations

Valter Juvelius in Jerusalem, around 1909

The Finnish philologist Valter Juva , alias Valter Henrik Juvelius, wanted to have discovered in the unvocalized text of the Book of Ezekiel a description that revealed the place where the treasure of the kings of Judah was hidden before the conquest of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar's troops in 586 . Spiritist séances with a Swedish medium had reinforced his view. It is important to uncover an underground passage through which one can penetrate from the outside into the area of ​​the Temple Mount , where the treasure hiding place is (Juvelius called it "Temple Archive"). In 1908 he traveled through Europe and looked for sponsors who could finance his treasure hunt - initially in vain.

But in the 30-year-old captain and veteran of the Boer War Montagu (Monty) Brownlow Parker, who later became the 5th Earl of Morley , Juvelius found a personality who brought his own financial resources into the project as well as soliciting other donors from their social environment. These included people as diverse as Consuelo Vanderbilt , Duchess of Marlborough and the Armor family from Chicago (Armor & Company, canned meat), but also several Russian and Swedish nobles. While Parker easily raised more than $ 125,000 for the expedition in England and America in the winter of 1908/09, Juvelius was also successful: he succeeded in engaging the clairvoyant Lee.

Since under Ottoman law all objects found during archaeological excavations were state property, Parker had to disguise the goals of his expedition. He bought an excavation permit in Constantinople . He acquired land on the Ophel through an agent and won the protection of two high-ranking Ottoman officials, whom he paid monthly for their benevolence. You should get a share in the expected treasure and in return allow it to be taken out of the country.

Parker Expedition dig in City of David; in the background the southern wall of the Temple Mount

Excavations in the City of David

In August 1909 the Parker expedition arrived in Jerusalem and took up residence in the Auguste Viktoria Hospice on the Mount of Olives , but stayed in the Hotel Fast, the best house in town. In addition to Parker, the expedition included a few young aristocrats who were friends: Clarence Wilson, Captain Robin G. Duff and Major Cyril Foley . There were also Valter Juvelius, the Irish medium Lee, a certain van Bourg, a Swede named Herman Wrangel and the Armenian translator Hagop Makasdar.

Material was bought generously, workers and servants were hired, officials bribed; then, at the behest of the medium, the Warren shaft began to be exposed. The engineer Walsh directed the work; 179 workers worked day and night in four shifts. Turkish soldiers shielded the excavation site from all prying eyes.

Ceramic finds from the Parker expedition

The activities on the Ophel and the secrecy aroused the suspicion of British and American archaeologists in Jerusalem. Parker apparently had no archaeological knowledge and did not document the work. In order to rebut the allegations, Parker won over the renowned archaeologist and Dominican Louis-Hugues Vincent for his expedition, the real goals of which he hid from Vincent. Vincent measured and researched the Warren tunnel system (called by him the "Ophel tunnel") expertly; the protest then subsided.

Vincent's interpretation of the karst shaft had significant consequences for understanding 2 Sam 5,6–8  LUT . According to him, Joab entered the city through this shaft (ṣinnor, "tube") and conquered Jerusalem in a flash for David . "The eloquent Dominican priest expanded the conquest of Jerusalem by the ṣinnor into a spectacular scenario ... that cast a spell over scholars, politicians and tourists for three generations and fired the imagination of countless visitors."

The winter rainy season began in November 1909 and the work was stopped. Parker returned to London and reorganized the expedition. He hired engineers who had previously worked on the London Underground and got them the material they wanted. In August 1910 the excavation on the Ophel was resumed; it was proceeding more effectively now.

Vincent was able to create the first precise description and mapping of the Hezekiah Tunnel (individuals had already crawled through it before), and with this achievement began its modern exploration. Meanwhile, Parker had not gotten closer to his treasure and was informed by the authorities that his excavation should be completed in the summer of 1911.

Juvelius stayed at the excavation until autumn 1910, or went on excursions in the area, as he could not be of direct use during the work. Then he got sick (probably malaria) and returned to Finland.

Despite the winter rains and the risks for the workers in the narrow shafts, the excavations continued without interruption until spring 1911.

Excavations on the Temple Mount

The New York Times, May 5, 1911

Parker, increasingly pressed for time, bribed Governor Azmey Bey with $ 25,000 for allowing his team to dig in oriental disguise on the temple grounds after dark. Azmey Bey included Sheikh Khalil al-Ansari, the chief overseer of the Haram , in this agreement. In the spring of 1911 they dug for a week in the southeast of the so-called horse stables of Solomon at the location indicated by the medium, but nothing was found.

On the night of April 17, 1911, Parker's team gained access to the Dome of the Rock , where they wanted to explore a natural cave under the sacred rock. According to a legend, there was a shaft under the 5 meter long and 7 meter wide cave that led into the depths, according to Max Küchler an "unexplored cavity (drain?)" In the middle of the cave. After midnight, a simple guard of the shrine became aware of the noises of the treasure dig and raised the alarm, whereupon Parker's people hurriedly fled. Clarence Wilson's yacht was anchored in the port of Jaffa .

While a riot broke out in Jerusalem, Parker managed to deceive the investigative authorities and to escape into international waters on the yacht Water Lily . It was rumored that the Parker expedition stole Solomon's crown, the Ark of the Covenant, and Muhammad's sword. In fact, the expedition members had been checked by customs in the port of Jaffa and had not been able to take anything on board. An angry crowd of Muslims and Jews, "united for this one and only time in their indignation", tried to lynch Sheikh Khalil al-Ansari and the translator Hagop Makasdar in Jerusalem. Only the arrest by Ottoman soldiers saved their lives. (Al-Ansari was later executed; Makasdar, the only member of the expedition whose authorities could get hold of him, was sentenced to prison.)

Parker himself did not believe that his expedition would have ended at this point and tried unsuccessfully to resume it until 1914. He did not receive an entry permit for the Ottoman Empire.

Conclusion

Back in London, Parker had to answer questions about the purpose of his dig. The material Vincent collected was just in time to give the bizarre company a serious look. It was published under the title Underground Jerusalem (Jerusalem sous terre) and became a standard work of Jerusalem archeology. That is the positive return of the Parker expedition.

The negative result of the company was the hostile mood among the population, which from then on not only attacked adventurers but also serious archaeologists and made excavations on the Temple Mount impossible.

Web links

Commons : Montagu Brownlow Parker  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

literature

  • NN: Secret Treasure Hunt, Work in Jerusalem . In: World's News, December 11, 1909.
  • Cyril Foley : In Search of the Lost Ark of the Covenant . In: The Sunday Express, October 3, 1926. (see Wikimedia Commons )
  • Cyril Foley: Why the Search for the Ark Failed . In: The Sunday Express, October 10, 1926. (see Wikimedia Commons )
  • Simon Sebag Montefiore : Jerusalem. The biography . S. Fischer, Frankfurt / M. 2011, ISBN 978-3-10-050611-5 , pp. 548-555.
  • Nirit Shalev Khalifa: In Search of the Temple Treasures. In: Qadmoniot 31 (No. 116), 1999, pp. 126-133 (Hebrew, not evaluated)
  • Max Küchler : Jerusalem. A handbook and study guide to the Holy City. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2007, ISBN 978-3-525-50170-2 .
  • Stephen G. Rosenberg: The Parker mission and Hezekiah's tunnel . In: Bulletin of the Anglo-Israel Archaeological Society, ISSN 0266-2442. Volume 27 (2009), pp. 79-87. (not evaluated)
  • Louis-Hugues Vincent: Underground Jerusalem: Discoveries on the Hill of Ophel (Jérusalem sous terre. Les récentes fouilles d'Ophel) . London 1911.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Cyril Foley: In Search of the Lost Ark .
  2. ↑ Simon Sebag Montefiore: Jerusalem . S. 548-549 .
  3. ↑ a b c d e f Neil Asher Silberman: In Search of Solomon's Lost Treasures. Retrieved May 3, 2018 .
  4. ↑ Simon Sebag Montefiore: Jerusalem . S. 551 .
  5. ↑ a b c Max Küchler: Jerusalem . S. 52 .
  6. ↑ Max Küchler: Jerusalem . S. 62-63 .
  7. ^ David Landau: Information on Valter Henrik Juvelius. Retrieved May 6, 2018 .
  8. ↑ Katharina Galor: Finding Jerusalem: Archeology Between Science and Ideology . University of California Press, 2017, pp. 178 .
  9. ↑ a b c d Stephen Gabriel Rosenberg: Mission Impossible. Retrieved May 3, 2018 .
  10. ↑ Max Küchler: Jerusalem . S. 244 .
  11. ↑ a b Simon Sebag Montefiore: Jerusalem . S. 553 .
  12. ^ Cyril Foley: Why the Search for the Ark failed .