Palestine’s turbulent past proved to be critical, if not fatal, to the country’s heritage. Despite the fact that Palestine in general, and the city of Jerusalem in particular, are probably among the most attractive regions to archaeologists, and thus the most densely excavated in the world, their heritage has suffered huge obstructions in modern times.

Israel’s involvement in the management of Jerusalem’s heritage after the 1967 war proved disastrous to its Arab and Islamic heritage. After the annexation of the Old City, Israel tried to displace the native past of the city with a foreign narrative. Many Israeli politicians argued that Palestinian history is recent if not invented, while others implied that there was no such thing as Palestinian history. This position enraged Palestinian scholars and stimulated a renascence of indigenous history with an intense interest in antiquity. Keen on maintaining the city’s Arab-Islamic heritage, a new class of Palestinian archaeologists and institutions emerged to counter Israeli claims and narratives. And after the establishment of the Palestinian authority in 1994, some semi-official bodies were formed for the same purpose.

Those who have a stake in this sensitive discussion include individual scholars and private and public institutions, such as the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Jerusalem Affairs, the Department of Waqf (Muslim religious trust), and academic institutions like al-Quds University and its Higher Institute of Islamic Archaeology. The private sector, represented by the Higher Council of Tourism, has taken notice of this matter, as have several local NGOs that formed in the city and neighboring towns to help raise awareness of the Palestinian past and to infuse Palestinian interpretations into previous archaeological work in the city.

Although it is probably still premature to talk about a well-defined Palestinian school of archaeology, this paper intends to discuss the Palestinian contribution to the archaeological research of Jerusalem during the past half century.