Israel Trip: Day 5

So, here is what happened yesterday, hopefully I'll get todays uploaded later tonight, we'll see though.

First we started at Megiddo, this tel is the location of nearly 20 ancient cities built at one time or another on top of each other. The location it is built on overlooks the Jezreel valley, it is in a place that is very difficult to defend and commands an overlook of the entire valley. It is at the foot of the Carmel mountains. This is also thought by some to be the location of the final battle of Armageddon mentioned in the book of Revelation. This was a strategic location to guard because it was on the Via Maris, a primary trade commercial rout along the sea from Egypt up into the Mesopotamia area. While a city was there for several thousand years, its importance went away when Alexander the Great came along and brought the Greek empire to combine all of the Israeli area and Egypt. Megiddo was now just a fort in the middle of a kingdom, rather than being a major watchtower on the edge of a kingdom guarding against the incursion form other kingdoms. When it was first discovered an infamous archeologist by the name of Schleman started the excavation, unfortunately he didn't care about being careful and just peeled off the layrs destroying evidence and not keeping records. Thankfully, he ran out of money when he was only through the hellenistic remains on the very top, and a team from the Chicago University was able to take over the excavation site and do a more careful, thorough job.

A model of Tel Megiddo

An impressive feature of Megiddo is its water supply, the spring was outside the city and so going out to get water was rather dangerous if it was under siege, so a shaft was cut downward and over to the entrance of the springs and the old entrance walled up and camouflaged. Cutting that far down and over and hitting the proper water level is impressive, and it remains unknown today quite how it was done. This is similar to the more well known Hezekiah's tunnel in Jerusalem.

Descending into the shaft to access the spring

Another interesting aspect of its design was the pedestrian entrance, it was a set of steps that turned at right angles several times to allow soldiers posted there to see if people coming into the city had weapons, basically a security checkpoint kind of thing.

This was a C-130 that flew overhead at Megiddo

We then jumped ahead in time to the holding camp of Atlit. This is on the coast north of Tel Aviv.

Barracks at the Atlit Museum

After WWII there were many displaced persons, many of them Jews. They either couldn't, or wouldn't return to their homes. They were kept in displaced persons (DP) camps in europe while it was figured out what to do with them. Many of the Jews wanted to migrate to the US or Palestine, this put pressure on the British, who were in charge of the Palestine mandate at the time, to let more Jews immigrate there. However, they didn't want to because this increased tensions with the Arabs. So, Jews would try to smuggle themselves into Palestine, a way used to get large numbers through was by means of boats. When the British caught them they would put them in a holding camp such as Atlit, or at later dates in camps on Cypress. Atlit would have been rather terrifying since it resembles a concentration camp in many ways in appearance, though they were treated nicer. Going from one camp to another, in their own land, would have been quite traumatic. The Atlit museum is a portion of the camp dedicated to remembering this time and struggles the Jews coming to settle Palestine had to endure. It is also a way through which people can find and connect with family members that might have been separated at that time. While Jews were being kept at Atlit the Palmach, an Israeli paramilitary group, worked to rescue some of them The biggest of the rescues they snuck several Palmach fighters in posing as Hebrew teachers to warn the refugees fo the impending rescue and sabotage the sentries weapons. They broke out 200+ refugees and while they were escaping they were going slowly because of the refugees and the British had started chasing them, when they got near to Haiffa the entire Jewish population had turned out and essentially absorbed the refugees preventing the British form finding them and returning them. Another major incident regarding the return of Jews was the incident of the Exodus, a ship overloaded with refugees attempting to get past the British, but it was caught and returned. This was seen in the media around the world and helped put pressure on the British to let more Jews in to Palestine. The camp museum has several reconstructed barracks and a restored, but original, disinfectant building.

Something I noticed while there is the group before us, it looked like some IDF people in it. One girl had a weapon slung over her back, while she had uniform pants on, she had just some sort of long sleeve shirt, I assume she was on duty, but I haven't had a chance to ask Mishi if that is normal to be on duty without full normal uniform.

The IDF Soldier with the weapon in apparently not full uniform

Bet Shemesh is near Jerusalem, it is a tel of 7 acres and its name is suggestive of pagan gods worshiped there. It is on the edge of Philistine territory and Judea. It was here that the ark of the covenant was returned after the Philistines captured it, but when it gave them problems, they put it on a cat and let the oxen go, this is where they brought it back to the Israelites. Current day Bet Shemesh is not on the location of the original tel.

Finally, we stopped briefly in the valley of Elah, this is where David and Goliath fought. Our primary purpose for coming was to see a new excavation, about 2 years old, of a city named Shar Arin.

Shar Arin in the Elah Valley

It is a fortified city, again near the edge of the Judea, Philistine border, and it is dated back to the time of David. It's significance at this point appears to be that it might help validate David as more than either a small tribal chief or non-existent character, but as the important figure he is portrayed as in the Bible.

We also talked about Jerusalem a bit because we are heading there for most of the rest of the week. In Old Testament times it was different from other major capitals in that it wasn't on any major trade routes or waterways. It didn't mean much until David took it from the Jebusites to be his capital, one without an specific tribal ties. Jerusalem was far smaller at that time, about 10 acres. In the New Testament time it was near 400 acres in size with 50,000 people living there. A large part of its economy was from pilgrimages there for the high holidays.

Now, this evening we have made the ascent to Jerusalem where we will be as our base of operations for the next several days.