Final weekend in Jerusalem

  Jerusalem, Israel
Sunday, July 27, 2008

We had another extremely busy week followed by another educational and restful weekend in Jerusalem.
 
I had the chance on Wednesday to take an hour to go and film and photograph our Youth Corps volunteers in their respective squares. They're working hard and are well integrated into their work teams. My wife and I frequently hear complimentary comments about their work ethic and their agreeable demeanor. From all reports, we're making a very positive contribution to the excavation and a good impression on the staff and other volunteers.
 
Friday we boarded the bus at 08:00. Our driver this weekend is named Sammy. We had one extra passenger with us, a wonderfully affable archeologist named Denise from the east coast of the US. She had finished her work at the dig and was going to visit family in Jerusalem. Since we had extra space we were happy to give her a lift.
 
We stopped first at Caesarea Maritima once again. We had already made the archeological/historical visit there while touring and several of our volunteers had commented that they wished we had time to swim. Most of them had not had the chance to swim in the Mediterranean before. So we stopped for an hour at the ruins of the Roman aqueduct and let those swim who wanted to. The surf was pretty high and the sea was not calm. Cautionary flags were flying on the beach, so I asked everyone to stay in close, among other swimmers, for safety sake and everyone complied gracefully.
 
So our YC volunteers had the chance to swim not far from Herod's swimming pool, on a stretch of beach that would likely have been reserved for the wealthy of Caesarea in Roman days.

Having a swim at Caesarea

There are lengths of Roman concrete, part of the old port structure, still visible and forming small breakwaters for the beach, which was well since the surf was high.
 
We then continued on to Jerusalem for our fourth weekend there. Since this was our last weekend, several had asked for shopping time; we decided to leave that for Friday afternoon. First we had lunch at a very interesting restaurant called the Quarter Café. We walked in through the Zion Gate once again, then into the Jewish Quarter. Just past the Cardo, the excavated Roman Main Street of Jerusalem, we turned right. We walked past the broad wall, a section of excavated wall dating from Hezekiah's time (around 700 B.C.). Due to the Assyrian menace, Hezekiah ordered emergency fortifications built and existing fortifications reinforced. As this wall was excavated, archeologists found where someone's house was incorporated into a new section of wall. The house stood in the path of the new wall, so it was filled with rocks and earth and used as a section of wall. That gives an idea of how urgent the threat was to the city.  We walked a bit farther, passed a number of Judaica shops (selling souvenirs menorahs, shofars, prayer shawls and the like), to the area of the burnt house: a house excavated from around 66 AD, a time when the Romans burned Jerusalem. Interesting artifacts were found in this house including Roman coins, a spear and the skeleton of a woman, as well as a stone weight with the name "Kathros", which was a priestly family living in Jerusalem at the time. Right above it is the Quarter Café which has very good food at reasonable prices (for Jerusalem - because the dollar is so weak at the moment, even a very simple meal with a soft drink costs around USD 20). The extra perk here is that the café terraces have views of the Temple Mount and the Western Wall. So we had our fish or quiche or pasta and gazed out over the Western Wall, the Dome of the Rock, the Al-Aqsa Mosque and on to the Mount of Olives beyond. It was a very pleasant lunch.
 
After our meal, we walked back past the Broad Wall and down the stairs to the Cardo. In Roman days it ran all the way through the city to the Damascus Gate. Only a section of it has been restored.

The Cardo in Jerusalem

After running several hundred meters it becomes the main passage from the Jewish to the Muslim Quarters of East Jerusalem. Before that point, several excavation shafts have been left visible, showing, down below, sections of wall from the time of the First Temple (Solomon's time!), Hezekiah's time and the Second Temple period as well as the Hasmonean period (the Maccabees).

Walls under the Cardo level

They are quite fascinating views. The Cardo turns into Souk Khan as-Zeit Street in the Muslim Quarter and we followed that to the Via Dolorosa to look as a reputable antiquities shop called the Aweidah Gallery. To our disappointment it was closed. Friday is not really a Muslim "Sabbath", they don't to close their shops on religious grounds (just attend the 1:00 pm sermon in a Mosque if they can); but apparently feeling some pressure from the custom of the Sabbath as observed by the Jews, some Muslims are now closing their shops on Friday. We arrived about 1:00 and ask people nearby if the shop would open after the sermon. As nearly as we could understand, the answer was "no"; it would be closed all day. There were others we could shop, but we'd have to be a bit more careful in the caveat emptor department.

Shopping in Muristan, near the "Holy Sepulcher"

 
We split up about 1:30 and agreed to meet at the New Gate at 4:00 pm.  Everyone was on time and we compared all the "loot" everyone bought when we arrived back at the bus. There were Druze (had embroidered) purses, various kinds of jewelry with embedded Roman glass, and less expensive trinkets of various types. My wife and I looked at period coins and pottery. A first-century Roman Denarius costs about $300. Complete juglets or pots from the Iron Age start at about $350 for very small ones, and go up from there. Later period pieces cost around the same, depending on size and condition.  Those items were a little beyond our budget, but we made some mental notes for the future, if we ever have the chance to come back.
 
We drove to the hotel and checked in, agreeing to meet at 7:00 for dinner. The kibbutz is not unpleasant, but it's rather rustic, and the food has become quite predictable now. So to have a break and stay in a hotel with very clean sheets, a shower with a constant water temperature (the showers at the kibbutz vary without warning from scalding hot to icy cold - which had led to the creation of the widely-known Hashofet shower dance!), and a dinner buffet with a completely different menu is a treat to which we all look forward during the week. Again there was a bus or two of young "Israel birthright" tourists at the hotel, learning about their ancient roots. It's interesting to watch how open some Jews are about their practices. It's not at all uncommon to see a man stand at his restaurant table and pray out loud, while bobbing his head up and down. Some will sing audibly, unconcerned by who might be watching. It's not exactly something one would see in other Western countries.
 
Saturday we slept in and enjoyed the breakfast buffet until 09:30. At 10:30 we met in our room for an interactive Bible Study, which I had prepared on the topic of planning one's life and setting appropriate goals. We finished a while before 12:00 and had time to check out and be on the bus by noon.
 
We intended to visit the Bible Lands Museum adjacent to the Israel Museum we visited three weeks ago. My Lonely Planet guide book assured me it was open on Saturdays, and it is a recent guidebook. But on arrival we found it closed. We went to plan B. After stopping at the hotel once again (someone forgot headphones in a room), we drove to the Jaffa Gate to visit the Citadel, also known as the Tower of David. It is the large castle overlooking the Jaffa Gate. There are a number of fascinating things about this fortification. Though it now looks like a medieval castle, and Suleiman made the last modifications on it, the structure has its origins in the palace of Herod the Great in the 1st century BC/AD. His palace included three huge towers, one of which served as the base of the present castle keep. The tower was used as the HQ of the Roman procurator after Herod until 66 AD when the city was burned. The  Byzantines came along around 250 years later and decided the huge tower must have been David's palace on Mt Zion (neither of which were anywhere near here), and called it, understandably enough, the Tower of David - the name stuck. Possession passed to the Muslim armies, then to the Crusaders (who added the mote which still surrounds it), then to Suleiman who made the final modifications.
 
Now it serves as a museum of the history of Jerusalem as a city. There is a very well-done animated film that retraces the history of the city from its earliest history to the present. From the top of the keep, an explanatory sign indicates which vestiges of walls come from Hezekiah's time, which from the Hasmonean, which from the Byzantine, & etc.

Inside the Citadel

It is quite interesting that so many walls from different periods were built on top of each other - but that shouldn't surprise us digging as we are at Megiddo where the same phenomenon is clearly seen. Facing the other direction from the top of the keep, one can look across Jerusalem to the Temple Mount about a kilometer away to the east.

From the Citadel facing east

 
We visited the exhibits of the different historical periods all the way down to the British Mandate that ended in 1948. The museum is very well presented and well worth the visit. The last thing we saw was a very interesting scale model map of the city made in the late 1800s by a visitor. The map was rediscovered 100 years later in a basement in Geneva and is on loan now. It gives a fascinating view of the city as it was at the time. What struck me most was that the Western wall area appeared completely buried and covered with houses.

Model of 1800s Jerusalem

 
We walked through the old city, for the last time on this trip to Amigo Emil which had won an opinion poll as to where we should eat.
 
To respect our budget, I give everyone an amount not to exceed for lunch: 60 shekels or a little less than 20 dollars. In the US that would be very generous, but in Jerusalem it's hard to eat for less, unless one wants to eat hummus and bread, and by now we've all eaten quite a lot of hummus.... There was a certain amount of bargaining and cooperation in menu selection. Two people might decide together to pool their 120 shekels and share the food between them allowing a bit more variety. French fries were a decided favorite I noticed, as was pasta.
 
As we ate, I asked for input on our four weekends in Jerusalem. Was that too much time spent in the city. The uniform answer was that it was not too much time. Several commented that it was too little, and two at least said that they were just getting to recognize places and to know their way around. What a special opportunity to get to know our way around the "Holy City"; its gates and main streets, its picturesque and historic quarters, and to feel like we really know them well.
 
We finished "lunch" a little before 4:00 pm and huffed and puffed our way up the now-familiar streets to the New Gate. Word at the dig had gotten around that we might have extra seats on the bus, and so about 15 of our dig-mates were waiting for a lift back to the kibbutz. We were happy to be able to supply this service to them. We had reserved and paid for a 14 seat-bus; if we had 50 seats why not share the blessing with other volunteer diggers, mostly starving students?
 
We arrived back around 6:00pm, not-too-tired physically, and mentally refreshed by the weekend, the visits and the change of pace.  Now we prepare for our last week on the excavation. It's been challenging, hard work so far, but I think we've all adapted to the schedule and, although we might like to change one or two things (like getting up at 4:00 am), are enjoying this highly educational experience.