British Museum Department of the Middle East group of stone reliefs from the excavations of Max von Oppenheim at Tell Halaf that was purchased in 1920. More material followed from the excavations of Max Mallowan at Chagar Bazar and Tell Brak in 1935–1938 and from Woolley at Alalakh in the years just before and after the Second World War. Mallowan returned with his wife Agatha Christie to carry out further digs at Nimrud in the postwar period which secured many important artefacts for the museum. The collection of Palestinian material was strengthened by the work of Kathleen Kenyon at Jericho in the 1950s and the acquisition in
Excavations at the Temple Mount Excavations at the Temple Mount A number of archaeological excavations at the Temple Mount—a celebrated and contentious religious site in the Old City of Jerusalem—have taken place over the last 150 years. The first were undertaken by the British Royal Engineers in the 1870s. Since Israel took control of the Old City in 1967, archaeological excavations in the vicinity of the Mount have been undertaken by Israel and the Jordanian/Palestinian-led Jerusalem Islamic Waqf. Both excavations have been controversial and criticized. Israeli and Jewish groups have criticized excavations conducted by the "Waqf", the Muslim authority in charge of the Al-Aqsa Mosque.