Sacred to three faiths and revered by more than half the people on the planet, Jerusalem conjures up powerful images of the celestial. Yet beneath its narrow alleys and holy places, the ancient city conceals a labyrinthine, three-dimensional time capsule recording five millennia of bustling prosperity, brutal war, and repeated religious innovation that altered the course of human history.

Since the days when Abraham Lincoln was in the White House, adventurers, archaeologists, and religious zealots have flocked here to hunt for buried treasure, unearth sacred artifacts like the Ark of the Covenant, and find proof of the Bible’s veracity. That digging to reveal the past continues today—and, in so doing, continues to alter the city’s future.

In Under Jerusalem: The Buried History of the World’s Most Contested City, acclaimed journalist Andrew Lawler takes us into the tombs, tunnels, and trenches of the Holy City—a saga of biblical treasures, intrepid explorers, and political upheaval—and brings to life the indelible characters who have investigated this subterranean landscape.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Andrew Lawler is author of the bestselling The Secret Token: Myth, Obsession, and the Search for the Lost Colony of Roanoke, and the acclaimed Why Did the Chicken Cross the World?: The Epic Saga of the Bird that Powers Civilization. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, National Geographic, and Smithsonian. He is a contributing writer for Science and a contributing editor for Archaeology. Lawler's work has appeared several times in The Best of Science and Nature Writing.