KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza: Five thousand years of fascinating history lie beneath the sands of the Gaza Strip. The flat, sandy lands on the Mediterranean's southeastern shore have been ruled by Ancient Egyptians, Philistines, Romans, Byzantines and Crusaders. Alexander the Great besieged the city. Emperor Hadrian visited. Mongols raided Gaza, and 1,400 years ago Islamic armies invaded. Gaza has been part of the Ottoman Empire, a camp for Napoleon and a First World War battleground. But archeology here does not flourish. “The only way to preserve what we discover is to bury it until the proper tools are available,” says Hassan Abu Halabyea of the Gaza Ministry of Tourism and Archeology. “We lack the capability, the support and the proper materials needed to maintain this historical site or that. We bury it to preserve it from destruction,” he says. Waleed Al-Aqqad is an amateur arceologist who has turned his house into a museum of ancient artefacts, cramming his rooms with old weapons and a collection of clay jars centuries old. “This is a clay-made oil-fueled lighting tool that goes back to the Greek era of 93 AD. This is another that was made during the Roman time in 293 AD,” he says. “This is a spear from the Ottoman times,” he beams. The 54-year-old Palestinian has spent 30 years searching and digging, sometimes in risky areas near the fortified Israeli border. Israel ended its 38-year occupation of Gaza and pulled out in 2005, but still blockades the hostile enclave. The United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization, UNESCO, and the Jerusalem-based Ecole Biblique et Archeologique are helping to prepare for a proper museum in Gaza that would be funded by Switzerland, though no date has been finalized for a start-up, Al-A'utul said. – Agence France
