Negev Field Trip

Shalom from the Holy Land!!!

On Monday we went on a field trip to the Negev (southern part of the Holy Land). We stopped three places to see Bedouin weaving, Tel Beersheba, and Tel Arad. It was sweet :-)

Our first stop was a weaving center for Bedouin women called Lakiya. This center encourages education for Bedouin women. They showed us how they weave out of wool to make rugs and bags and other woven textiles. 

We sat in this tent to learn about weaving

These Bedouin women were weaving a rug while we were sitting there. They said that from start to finish it takes about 6 weeks to make one rug.

The women brought us some sweet herbal tea--it was pretty good!

The women carrying the tea trays...

This woman is taking wool (they buy it from local shepherds) and turning it into a single strand of yarn.

The first stop is spinning the wool into yarn.

The second step is twisting two strands together to make a thicker strand of yarn.

 The next step in making the yarn is dying it to the desired color.

  

After the yarn is dyed, they spin it again to make sure the two pieces of yarn are entwined.

The women then put the yarn on a loom and weave it in the desired pattern and shape.

These are some of the finished rugs in the store for sale.

 Me, Eden, and Alyssa in the store, and Jacob trying on a woven belt.

    Me, Paige, Ben, and Mikkel                      

 Our next stop was Tel Beersheba (also spelled Beersheva). It is "Abraham's home town." After Abraham leaves Ur and travels through Haran, he travels south and settles in Beersheba. This is the place where Isaac grew up.

The Tel (Tel means a city/area that has been covered completely and archaeologists have to dig to find the remains of ancient cities) here goes down pretty deep. This picture shows the slice out of the Tel that archaeologists cut to get a sense of how deep this Tel goes. They only uncover small pieces at a time (other than a chunk like this that is done for reference) because archaeology is destructive, and it is assumed that in the future, less invasive techniques will be invented that will enable sites to be preserved better than they currently are.

We wore hard hats at this Tel because we ended up going through an underground cistern

Lindsay and Professor Stratford :-)

This is the Wadi Beersheba. This is the rainy season in the Holy Land, so there is water in the Wadi. Apparently, the river bed is typically dry and the land is not so green. This would have been a major source for water in this ancient city.

Sawyer likes to pretend to be a tour guide, and he often points out "important" things. In this picture, he is telling us that the train that is going past is the train from the Lawrence of Arabia movie...

Tel Beersheba was a military post (estimated at around 900-700BC). The entrance had a four chambered gate. You can see in this picture four rooms (right in the middle of the picture) these would have been kindof like ticket windows at our government buildings--people would come to these rooms to take care of legal matters, pay tribute, etc... 

Brother Judd is teaching us about the four chambered gate. (He is standing in one of the four rooms) These rooms are at the entrance to the city, so any visitor would have had to stop at them.

This is a large piece of the uncovered city of Beersheba (this was not Abraham's Beersheba--the place where Abraham lived is where the modern city of Beersheba is, and therefore it is not excavated like this.)

These are remains of a four room house typical in this time period. Professor Stratford is explaining how the space would have been used by the typical family (as this was a military post, the family would likely have been family of a military officer) 

I am standing in the four room house :-)

This diagram and the below picture depict the storage facilities in this city. They discovered pottery and food storage supplies in this region, indicating that the complex would have stored goods in these rooms.

The city on the horizon is modern Beersheba. It also would have been the real area where Abraham built a well and then settled with his family.

We then went down into the water storage system in Tel Beersheba. The people in this city would wait for the Wadi/river to overflow in the rainy season, and they would let water flow into their underground cistern (which was covered in plaster to keep the water semi-clean) and then they would use the gathered water until the next rainy season (the few months of winter is the rainy season).

The hole leading down to the cistern was HUGE.

After we got out of the tunnel from the water system, we saw this altar. It is a replica of an altar found here at Beersheba (the real one is in the Israel Museum). Interestingly, the altar was found reverently buried. It was one of the altars from a satellite temple in Beersheba that Hezekiah had decommissioned. This altar is built out of hewn (polished/shaped by man) stones rather than unhewn stones (the Israelite law states in the bible that altars needed to be made out of unhewn stones because they are closer to God than stones that have been shaped by man). So this altar was taken apart and buried so that the people would stop using it.

Our next stop was Tel Arad, where we saw ruins of a military Fortress from 600BC and a town from the Early Bronze Age (around 3000BC)

To the Fortresses!!!

I thought this was a cool picture... It should be an album cover or something...

I also thought this was rad...

Reagan, Mikkel, and Sawyer working their makeshift kaffias

This was another temple that was found buried reverently. It was one of Hezzekiah's decommissioned temples. This area was the Holy of Holies. The stone pillars are actually a reconstruction because the real Holy of Holies is in a museum. The stone pillars in front would have been used to burn incense. The ones in the back represent Diety. Temples of this construction would have had one stone pillar in the back to represent God. For some reason, this temple has two. There isn't really an explanation for this other than the possibility that pagan traditions crept into this satellite temple and contributed to Hezzekiah's decision to decommission the satellite temples and only permit the temple to be in Jerusalem.

This is a shot of the whole temple. To the right is the altar (notice the unhewn stones). The middle room would have been the "more holy place" and to the left is the Holy of Holies.

This is a shot of most of the Tel. This whole area would have been the bustling city of Arad--one of the biggest cities in the Early Bronze Age (3000BC).

The other group in the ruins...

Check out that English translation for "Canaanite"...

The wall dates back to 3000BC

Behind Professor Stratford is some modern excavation...

Here is a closer look at the excavation going on currently...

The fortress of Tel Arad (c. 600BC)

This altar dates back to c. 3000BC

This basin next to the altar also dates back to c. 3000BC and would have been used either for water or to collect blood from sacrifices or something...

Hanging out in a very old house...

Brother Judd giving a devotional in Tel Arad

More ruins c. 3000BC

This well was extremely deep. 

Our group hanging out around the well...

We had a wonderful day :-)

Tel Arad, Beersheba, and the Lakiya weaving center made for a wonderful field trip to the Negev!!!

love you!

-Erika