These excavations begun by Benjamin Mazar in 1968 were the largest earth-moving archaeological projects in Israel. Work continued until 1978 but has since resumed in the 1990s under the direction of Ronny Reich. These excavations are the most important for understanding the Temple Mount because of the impossibility of excavating on the mount itself.This street was fully uncovered in the mid-1990s and dates to the decades before the city’s destruction by the Romans in AD 70. The street is 32 feet (10 m) wide and was paved with large slabs up to a foot thick.