Sifting Sacred Ground

My stint as an amateur archaeologist began one morning on the southern slope of Mount Scopus, a hill on the northern outskirts of Jerusalem. Inside a large hothouse covered in plastic sheets and marked 'Temple Mount Salvage Operation,' a woman from Boston named Frankie Snyder-a volunteer turned staffer-led me to three rows of black plastic buckerts, each half-filled with stones and pebbles, then pointed out a dozen wood-framed screens mounted on plastic stands.