Nablus, WEST BANK — Students from An-Najah National University, joined by the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities staff at the West Bank city of Nablus, have cleaned up the Roman hippodrome, one of the city's best-known tourist attractions.

In July and early August, the students removed over 40 truckloads of garbage and waste from the site of the hippodrome, as well as weeds, thus enabling the ancient site, with its partly excavated Roman columns, seats and arena, to become a place where tourists can visit.

The radical difference between before and after the cleanup has spurred a debate on the neglect of the numerous monuments around the city of Nablus, which is currently on UNESCO's Tentative List of World Heritage Sites. Placement on this list is the first step toward the site's inclusion in UNESCO World Heritage list — a country may not nominate sites that have not been first included on the Tentative List. The Tourism Ministry officials say that they are preparing the nomination file on the Old City of Nablus to become part of the World Heritage.

Currently surrounded by the vegetable market from one side and the city's central mall on the other, the hippodrome was constructed in late second century, along with several nearby sites for games and entertainment, including a theater. A century later, an amphitheater was built at the circular end of the hippodrome. The hippodrome could hold 25,000 spectators and was widely used, until it was converted into a gladiator arena under the reign of Philip the Arab, the Roman emperor who raised the status of Neapolis, as Nablus was called in Greek, to a Roman colony in 244 A.D.