Sabbath Day -- Shabbat

Saturday June 13, 2015

As an accommodation to local customs, LDS church services in Jerusalem are held on Saturdays -- on the BYU Jerusalem Center campus on Mount Scopus.   We really look forward to being able to participate.  Since Israeli buses don't run on Shabbat, we take the Arab bus #275 across the valley and up to Mount Scopus.  We get to the bus by walking north through the Old City and out the "New Gate", which was added in 1889.

Immediately upon exiting the New Gate, we see Notre Dame of Jerusalem.  We thought it was a Catholic church but it's actually a convention center and guest house.  As our dig leader James Tabor puts it, "There's a nice Jewish girl, watching over Jerusalem."

Looking back at the nice Jewish girl as we enter the Muslim area to catch our bus.

  

The bus costs 11 shekels for the two of us.  That's about $3.25 these days.  Then it's a hike up the hill and we're there.

Church services are held in the spectacular concert hall, which overlooks the Old City.

(Since we were asked not to take photos during the meetings, I found these on google images.)

There were lots of visitors, including a tour group.  We reconnected with a young man who was on our Nesher ride into the city the previous evening.  LDS church services are fairly similar throughout the world, and we felt perfectly at home.  Pete even crashed their choir practice, and will be singing with them next week.

We took a few photos on the campus.  We have many other very similar photos from our two previous trips to Israel, but it's hard to resist the view.  I'll just add a few here.

 (Indiana DeLong cleans up and goes to church.)

The landscaping is full lovely little spots like this.

Classic view of the Dome of the Rock, directly west of the BYU Center.

Just to the north of the Old City is the Rockefeller Museum.  We really enjoyed our visit there in 2013.  We have a new reason for going there this year -- watch for a report in a future post.

After leaving the BYU Center, we hiked south to the Mount of Olives.  I'll write about that in the next post.

Travel Day

Thursday and Friday June 11 - 12, 2015

What a looooooong day!  We left the house just before 6 a.m. and walked with our rolling suitcases to the bus stop.  The bus and blue line combination are a great way to get to the airport during rush hour.  Check in at the airport went fine.  We're enrolled in TSA Precheck, which makes going through security much easier.  We highly recommend it!  Pete got randomly selected for a pat-down anyway.  I guess he looks dangerous.  :)

Our efficiency in getting to the airport meant that we had about 90 minutes to spare.  But that's better than rushing and then missing the plane!  Our landing at La Guardia was a little scary -- first the right wheels hit the ground, and then a few seconds later, the left wheels finally touched down.

When we made our flight reservations to connect in NYC, we realized that we would have a 10-hour layover, and thought maybe we'd be able to go to Manhattan for some quick sight-seeing.  But what we did not realize is that we were flying INTO La Guardia, but flying OUT of JFK.  And part of the deal was for us to retrieve our luggage and transport it ourselves to JFK.  We were not amused when we realized this fact about 2-3 weeks before the trip, but there was nothing we could do without incurring big change fees.  (Our trip home had the same connections but with only 3-hours to retrieve luggage at JFK, go through customs, and then make it to LGA in time to catch our flight home.  That actually can't be done, but it was one of the flight plans offered on the airline website.  I was able to get that flight changed without a fee.)  So we ended up just killing about 7.5 hours at JFK -- not enough time to safely do some sight-seeing.

Our flight into Tel Aviv was comfortable and the landing was smooth.  Pete and I both actually slept for a few hours.  I watched "Night at the Museum".  Luggage showed up promptly, we breezed through immigration.  By the time our shuttle van dropped us off at the Jaffa Gate in Old Jerusalem, it was after 7 p.m. Israel time.  We had been traveling 29 hours.

(photo from Wikipedia)
We climbed the stairs, walked a few blocks, and arrived at the Gloria Hotel, where most of the dig participants are staying.  We have an excellent group rate, don't worry.

We decided to take a short walk because it was still light and somehow we had the energy.  We were joined by Nina, a teenaged dig participant whom we have agreed to grandparent.  More about her in another post.  We walked with Nina down to our dig site, a leisurely 10-minute stroll, so different from the strenuous hike of 2013.  We're going to love our hotel location!

Back to Mount Zion!

We decided in January to return to the Mount Zion dig this year.   We've had our plane tickets and accommodations since February.  We've worked hard to complete essential church, home, and work responsibilities.  We think we have everything just about ready, but we haven't packed yet.  Time to get going on that!

And we've been reading up on all things related to our dig site.  For example, there's this magazine article:

We leave tomorrow morning!

Results of the 2014 Dig Season

Late 2014 - Early 2015

We did not participate in the 2014 dig season.  It felt so strange not to be there.  We are grateful to the 2014 dig team for posting pictures on Facebook!

This is what the site looked like in late 2014, perhaps October or November.  "Up" is west, and north is to the right.  The Crusader-era wall runs pretty much east-west at this point, and the Zion Gate is just beyond the top of the picture.  The Old City is behind the wall on the right;  modern Jerusalem is everywhere else.  This photo was taken by team member Joel Kramer.  We're not sure how he did it!

So much progress was made by the 2014 dig team!  Sandbags, placed for erosion control, serve to outline and enhance the individual spaces.  What was once a rough, tricky footpath between the wall and the dig now looks safe for senior citizens.  We walked that path every day between the Zion Gate and the opening in the site fence at the lower left-hand corner of the photo.  This is looking great!

By December 2014 the seasonal rains had brought some green to the site.  We're looking east, with the Mount of Olives in the background.

Here's a photo from March 2015, looking west this time.  The site is getting a little overgrown.  The crenolated city wall on the right is interesting, isn't it?  The building with the conical dome is the Dormitian Abbey.  To its left is the building that houses the traditional sites of King David's Tomb on the lower level and the "Upper Room" of Jesus' Last Supper on the upper level.  The identification of those two sites is still a matter of debate.

From rough trail in 2013 to a paved walkway with easy stairs and a HANDRAIL in 2015!  This is fantastic!

Late March 2015 after an exceptionally wet winter.  First we look up towards the west.....

... and then look down towards the east.

By late April 2015, the site is completely overgrown.  It's easy to understand how the remains of a civilization can get lost when nature takes over.  Without intervention, we might have a hard time finding this place in a few years.

The rainy season is over, and things have started to dry up by early June 2015.  

And better yet, someone has been pulling weeds and cleaning up the site!

So when the 2015 dig team arrives at the end of this we, excavation can start immediately.

This is good news for us, because 

WE ARE GOING BACK TO 

DIG MOUNT ZION!

Looking Back at Our Final Day

July 12, 2013 Thursday

I never did add the final post for our 2013 Dig Mount Zion record -- partly because we were asked not to post photos of a major find until it had been published, and partly because I just never got around to it.

First a review of what I did for the last few days -- pottery washing.  Pam is working with me here.

Pete is interviewing me ...

Now we'll take a last look at some of the 1st-century areas on our site,

 as they appeared on our last day in 2013.

Looking down into the building.  There is a chamber below where the rocks collapsed (middle of the photo).  This was dangerous for our team members, but fortunately no one fell in.

 Climb down the ladder and peek through the arched doorway, and what do you see?

This was perhaps our most significant find of the season:  a full-sized BATHTUB, cut from a single piece of stone.  This is prima facie evidence that the owner of this dwelling was a very wealthy person.

Gabi is inside the "bathroom".

 Besides the bathtub, there were three ovens, two cisterns, and the private mikveh.  The mikveh, used for ritual purification, lead us to believe that this was the home, even mansion, of a wealthy high priest.

The Israel Antiquities Authority, or IAA, is the legal owner of all archaeological finds in Israel.  They have removed the bathtub and we assume it is now in the archaeology section of the Israel Museum in Jerusalem.  We'll have to go back and look for our bathtub!

We said farewell to our Mount Zion dig and made our way back up through the old city.

We passed this corner every day.  It's just outside the Zion Gate, between the gate and our dig site.

Zoom in to read the sign.  Go left to find the coenaculum, also called the "cenacle" from "cena", Latin for "dinner".  This is the traditional site of the Last Supper, although the building itself dates to much more recent Crusader times.  Go to the right to access the traditional site of King David's Tomb, as well as the Dormitian Abbey.  David's Tomb is actually the ground floor, with the Upper Room above.

The Domitian Abbey was very important to our dig team, because that's where the restrooms are!
Our group donated a case or two of toilet paper to the Abbey.

Now we go into the Old City though the Zion Gate for the last time in 2013.  We've had a wonderful experience.

 A joyous Bar Mizveh celebration happened by just in time for us to watch.