Jetlogged: Shephelah Field Trip!

Dear Journal,

Sometimes it feels like keeping a blog is like keeping a public journal ;-) haha... Last week we went on a field trip to the Shephelah (pronounced Shfaylah) which are the lower hills of Judea. Among other things, this is the area where David killed Goliath.

We started out our trip going to Beth Shemesh where we talked about Samson (who was born nearby).

There were tons of wildflowers all over when we were there (it is green and beautiful for a few months during the winter, but the rest of the year is dry and dusty)

Check out the flowers with ruins from Beth Shemesh in the background

Apparently, it is illegal to pick wildflowers in Israel. Kara didn't know and she picked this one and was told off by Professor Judd... so she is sad...

Lindsay might be one of my favorite human beings ever.

Hunter and Sawyer are so cute ;-)

Me, Lindsay, and Aubreigh...

Paige and Me hanging out in the Shephelah. That word rocks.

This is all pottery. There are pottery dumps at a lot of archaeological sites with broken bits of pottery. Museums typically take a few pieces that are whole or that can be pieced together to illustrate the time period or any cool markings. The rest of the pottery found is just left at the sites... I took a piece as a souvenir (my professor said that I could) ;-)

Our next stop was Azekah which overlooks the Elah valley where David fought Goliath.

Jenessa, Hannah, and Mikkel looking good.

Brother Judd is holding a rock that is the estimated size of the rock that David would have killed Goliath with. Pretty big. Imagine that one to your forehead ;-)

Tori, Spencer, and Emily... I don't know exactly what they were trying to reenact here, but whatever...

Me and Rachel--Roommate Love ;-)

Lindsay, Me, and Rachel overlooking the Elah Valley

Practicing my slingshot. The valley behind me is where David killed Goliath

slingshots are rad...

Skylar and I are basically BFFs. Funny story--my roommate Kelli back in Provo knew Skylar their freshman year (before Skylar went on his mission) For those of you who know LDS terminology, they were FHE mom and dad in their ward fhe group ;-)

David (Jacob) and Goliath (Ragan). We had a really great skit with these two ;-) If you want to read the scriptural account, it is here

Our next stop was Mareshah. It is a huge area that is partially caves/underground houses and partially a Tell (excavation of a city). The pictures above are of the limestone where there are bell caves. The stone is pretty soft, so it is easily carved. Ancient people would use this rock to build, and so the caves are the result of mining. The pictures above are basically in a "valley" made by people digging the rock out. The black part at the top was originally the ground level, and the area where we were standing was all solid rock that has since been hallowed out over a large time span.

These are the bell caves. You can see how enormous they are, and the hole in the ceiling is where the people would have been mining from. Pretty rad!!!

So another cool thing about Mareshah is that it was one of the places where doves and Pigeons would be raised (people would buy them here and then use them for meat or sacrifice or whatever...) Interestingly, it says in Luke 2:24 that after Jesus was born, Mary and Joseph went to Jerusalem to offer two turtledoves (pigeons) as a sacrifice as was custom. There is no record of them purchasing them here, and I am not saying that they were purchased here, but they did purchase them from somewhere, and this kind of place was common during that time period. Either way, it was really interesting to see (all the holes in the wall are little coves where the birds would "live").

The Guvrin valley is behind me/where I'm standing, which is where Mareshah is located.

Ragan and Me--I LOVE how beautiful this place is!!! Apparently by the time we leave this will all be brown...

Sarah and Sara (we have 6 "Sarahs" in our group) having fun in the grass :-)

Mareshah is important because it is an ideal example of a Hellenistic city. Additionally, it has the bell caves, the dovecote from Jesus' time, and these underground houses and tombs. The picture above shows the entrance to the underground houses (the limestones is really soft, so the people would build houses underground and then also on the surface, so they would have multi-level houses). Now all of the houses have been connected so that tourists can walk through them. It took us about 20-30 minutes to walk through them, and it was pretty cool! The other picture shows a staircase going around and in the center is a cistern. You can see that there is some water in it--that is the type of water storage system they would use (collect water in the cistern during the winter and then use it all year).

These are the tombs at Mareshah. They are important for several reasons. They were from the Hellenistic Period, and based on inscriptions archaeologists believe that wealthy Idumeans were buried here. Also, this type of burial was common in the New Testament, but the time of these tombs dates back more to the Hellenistic period (around 300 BC), so they must have been one of the first of this style in the Holy Land (the body would be laid in the tomb to decompose for a year or more and then the bones would be collected and placed in a separate receptacle and then stored in the tomb.)

Me, Skylar, Eden, Mikkel, Tori, Sawyer, Sierra hanging out in the tombs. The paintings above us are of animals, and it is postulated that they came from a sketchbook made in the gardens of Alexandria. So that is pretty cool...

Skylar and I are basically Death and Resurrection ;-)

Mikkel photobombed Tori and Rachel's photo...

Our final stop of the day was Lachish. This was an important city in biblical times and other historical periods also.

Roommate Rachel and Myself. We're cute.

The city of Lachish is at the top, the rocks there are the remains of a siege ramp built by the Assyrians when they invaded and took over the city in around 700 BC. It probably took them about 3 months to build (under attack from archers in the city above)--can you imagine seeing an invading army come to your city and build a ramp and sit there just knowing that you are about to be destroyed? The Assyrians had a reputation for taking everyone over. Lachish saw the signal fire in Azekah go out (you can see Azekah from Lachish, and the two cities were under the same rule. Azekah was taken by the Assyrians and Lachish was taken right after, but they would have known that the Assyrians had just conquered their neighbors and were coming for them...)

Spencer and Chaille walking in Lachish

Paige and the rest of our class--by the end of this day we were all exhausted.

I love these pictures. Lindsey Newman and Jenessa sleeping with Lindee in the back. My favorite picture ever may be this one of Meg and Skylar sleeping with Eden creeping on them from behind...

So this next series of photos illustrates the 70+ photos I have on my camera of Eden and John freaking out... Skipping through all 70+ of them quickly is quite entertaining...