Today, we are accustomed to reports of attempts at archaeological excavations on the Temple Mount that encounter Muslim resistance – but a little more than 100 years ago, such excavations angered even the city's Jewish residents to the point of a lynching attempt, in an affair about which Perplexity tells us:
Montagu Brownlow Parker, 1909th Earl of Morley, was a British aristocrat and military officer who led an archaeological expedition to Jerusalem in <> in search of the Ark of the Covenant and other treasures from the First Temple. Parker's expedition was launched after Walter Henrik Jubelius persuaded a group of upper-class Englishmen to discover secret scriptures in the Bible, detailing the location of the Holy Ark and other Temple treasures.
They formed a syndicate named after their initials, J.M.P.V.F. (Jubelius, Milne, Parker, Vaughn, and Fort). The syndicate obtained the consent of the Ottoman imperial government for the project, on condition that they share any finds with it.
The delegation began excavating on the Temple Mount, but encountered opposition from the local Arab population, which opposed the excavation at the holy site, and according to Simon Sebag Montefiore's book Jerusalem – The Biography, members of other religions, including Jews, also believed that it was blasphemy.
Parker tried to bribe the mountain's guards to let him dig in secret – but the secret was apparently leaked by an unhappy guard, further angering the locals. The situation escalated, and Parker and his team were expelled from Jerusalem by a mob of demonstrators, including members of all religions in the city, who threatened them and forced them to leave the city.
Despite the failure of the expedition, Parker continued to search for the Ark of the Covenant and other treasures for many years. He even claimed to have found the coffin in Ethiopia, but his claims were never proven.
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