The latest large archaeological excavation in Silwan's City of David site is a hive of activity. Archaeology students from the world over are digging, dusting and displaying ancient artefacts found here
The land here is privately owned by Elad, an Israeli association that also funds Jewish settlement building across occupied East Jerusalem.
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Yonatan Mizrahi runs alternative, critical tours around the City of David and across Silwan. As a former archaeologist for the Antiquities Authority who worked in East Jerusalem, he told me he saw first hand how Israel and Jewish-interest groups sometimes use archaeology as a political tool.
Mr Mizrahi says archaeology is about learning about the past but that individuals then choose how to interpret the past. "One religion or another may look at an excavation site and say - that land is ours," Mr Mizrahi said.
But he qualified this by saying even if archaeologists were to find a big sign, reading 'Welcome to King David's Palace', that wouldn't give Jewish Israelis the right to claim East Jerusalem today.
"Just like if the Vatican found something here, it wouldn't give the church the right to take ownership of this land. The bottom line is that Palestinians are the majority in East Jerusalem," Mr Mizrahi said.
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However, that hardly stops Israel adding insult to injury by announcing new West Bank shrines to heritage list
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8527532.stm
Finally, Israel's prime minister has just announced yet another controversial plan to add two major religious sites in the West Bank to the country's national heritage list.
Close to 500,000 Jews live in more than 100 settlements, illegal under international law, built since Israel's 1967 occupation of the West Bank and Arab East Jerusalem.
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