jerusalem

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still tired but pressing on (so much to see)

today we first went to Meresha a tell in the valley of Ajelon where the archioligists are digging and they show people through the digs, in this area they are mostly underground as the houses built above were mostly destroyed and the stones etc thrown into the cellars, we went down into one of these cellars and dug the floor and filled buckets for a while and then went out and sived the dirt to find pot shards etc. this was an interesting way to get tourists to dig for you and teach them at the same time.

we also went into a more recently discovered cellar where we had to crawl through the areas not yet dug to show us what its like at the start of the dig this was an interesting experience and also cooler than outside where it is about 38 today.

we saw here also bell caves where they quaried the rock by digging a hole through the harder rock to get to the limestone and then went wider as they went down forming a bell shape with a hole in the top many of these were found when people fell in.

this area was on a trade root to jerusalem and they produced olive oil and raised doves here and sold them to travelers they found 28 olive presses here

we went to the valley of elah and went up the hill where the philistines assembled with goliath to get an overlooking of the area and then we went down to the streem and picked up 5 smooth stones to make our suitcases heavier

lachish also known as tell ed-duweir one of the towns conquered by the syrians before the tryed to take jerusalem from Hezekiah and also taken by babylon when they went into captivity

this town was in a strategic position so had a double wall

then we went to beth shemesh where the philistines sent the ark back to Israel on the cart. the feild where they were harvesting grain is still there today and had just been harvested for hay so it was easy to imagine the ark coming down the road

also sampson grew up near here

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Photos

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Esther in the bell caves recieving a vision

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buckets of shards on ancient steps

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buckets of chards

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danny helping to sive the dirt

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olive crusher

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this divise squashes the bags of crushed olives (an olive press)

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pigeon roosts

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valley of elah

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valley of elah

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our group at valley of elah

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streem where we found stones

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bet shemesh

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separation wall with over hang to stop stones being thrown onto cars

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walking back with stones in pockets

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lachish