AFP - Sprawled across a hemispherical mound where the Judaean Hills meet the desert, ancient Herodium lies deep inside the occupied West Bank but has borne up a treasure trove of finds for Israeli archaeologists.After a three-decade search Professor Ehud Netzer of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem last year discovered the tomb of King Herod the Great, the Roman-era Jewish king infamous for the biblical massacre of the innocents.He has since excavated Herod's elaborate two-storey mausoleum and unearthed the shattered fragments of three sarcophagi believed to be those of Herod and two of his 10 wives which have been painstakingly reassembled by his team and are to be put on show in the Israel Museum in 2010.

The Israeli archaeologist's long quest is to be the cover story of the December edition of National Geographic magazine.It is also to be the subject of a special documentary on the National Geographic Channel dubbed "Herod's Lost Tomb" which is to be aired on Sunday in the United States and later in 166 other countries around the world.To Israelis and to Jews around the world, Herod has special significance as the man who rebuilt the Second Temple in Jerusalem, the last vestige of which is the Western Wall, Judaism's holiest site.But to Palestinians, the site which lies deep inside the West Bank overlooking the Dead Sea and the hills of Jordan, is an area that must be ceded to their control if Israel is ever to deliver on the promise of a viable and contiguous Palestinian state.

It lies far beyond even the planned route of the controversial separation barrier that Israel is constructing to guard its main settlement blocs inside the West Bank.But for the time being the site lies in what is dubbed Area C, which the 1993 Oslo autonomy accords with the Palestinians left under exclusive Israeli administrative and security control.It is the same with much of the site of Herod's ancient palace in Jericho down in the Jordan Valley, below where Netzer has also worked.Netzer is all too aware of Palestinian claims.Excavations at Herodium had to be suspended during the first Palestinian uprising in the late 1980s and again during the second intifada earlier this decade.

But Netzer is adamant that until there is a peace agreement it is his job to work within the rules as they exist and to continue his work."I start with the facts. Most of the excavations in Jericho and Herodium are in Area C and according to the agreements so far there is going to be negotiation about its future," he said."I don't want to speak about something that has not been decided," he said, when asked whether he believed it would one day be handed over to the Palestinians."We do our archaeological work regardless of what we excavate."Asked whether he could foresee collaborating with Palestinian archaeologists in the future he said: "Time will show. In this country it's very hard to see how things will develop.

"But just down the road from Netzer's base at the Hebrew University, at Al-Quds University in Abu Dis, a Palestinian suburb of Jerusalem, archaelogy professor Ibrahim Abu Aamar bemoaned the fact that while an Israeli team made spectacular finds, he and his students could only watch on in their own land."From a legal point of view these excavations are against international law because they are carried out in occupied territory," said Abu Aamar."I myself live only two kilometres (barely a mile) from the site and I sometimes visit it with my students."We have to pay 23 shekels (nearly six dollars) each just like any other tourist and we are not allowed to do any excavations because it is Area C.

"In the meantime, Gush Etzion council, which administer's the region's Jewish settlements, is keen to use Herodium and the finds made by Netzer to boost the economy of the settlements.It has even contributed some 500,000 dollars towards the costs of Netzer's excavations, Mayor Shaul Goldstein told AFP."In recent years the council has worked diligently in order to preserve and develop the site though the investment of millions of shekels (around one million dollars) half of which has been devoted to the excavations by Professor Netzer and half in the development of the visitor facilities there," he saidGoldstein said he wanted to boost tourist numbers at Herodium, which have fallen from 200,000 a year before the first intifada to just 60,000 now, in the hope that they will spawn new restaurants and hotels in the nearby settlements.

"Of course tourism is a leverage for the economy," he said, adding that the region's settlements were "growing rapidly" despite Israel's commitment to halt their expansion at the US-hosted conference which relaunched peace negotiations with the Palestinians late last year.He added that he hoped an influx of foreign tourists would also help reshape the view of most people in the outside world that the settlements are illegal and ought to be removed."Tourism is the best way to bring in people without ideologies. We don't want to make propaganda. We just want people to come and see and make up their own minds," he said."The separation barrier is a huge mistake. Herodium is on the wrong side of the separation barrier."