Day 2 - Part 6

I promise, this day will end, eventually.  Never envisioned this many posts for a single day. Every day won't be like this day. I promise.

Having eaten our lunch, it was back on the bus as we continued to head north to our destination for the evening, Tiberias, on the shore of the Sea of Galilee.  We head across the plain of Megiddo to the actual site of Megiddo from which the valley gets its name.  The valley is a beautiful place, agriculture, water, seems like a thriving place.  There is too much to see and take in from inside the bus, but we still have a lot of stuff to do before we get to Tiberias.

Megiddo is a fascinating place.  It is one of the places where the whole idea of archaeology began.  It was first excavated in the 1800's when the "science" of archaeology was first being developed.  Because of the lack of knowledge about procedures and what not, a fair amount of damage was done to parts of the site.  Essentially the early thoughts about archaeology was to dig everything away and find out what was there.  Apparently they don't take that approach anymore, are much more conservative about the digging and try to determine what might be the most valuable information, not just the oldest.  

That must be difficult as you don't know what is in the ground until you dig it up.  Our archaeologist/guide, Eli Sukron was explaining that one day.  He said, "you may dig here and find nothing, but an inch away might be something of great importance.  You don't know until you dig and find it."  He should know because he has found a lot of important stuff.  

Because of Megiddo's location on a rise over the valley of Megiddo, it was a very important city.  

It oversaw the trade routes that went up and down the valley.  And by saying oversaw, I mean controlled them.  This was so important that Megiddo kept getting conquered and resettled.  One of the things that they did learn from some of the early digging was that there are 26 separate layers of differing civilizations on the Megiddo site.  I think that is some kind of record for a city anywhere.  Megiddo is also the subject of the earliest written record of warfare.  I thought that was an interesting fact.  

Megiddo is a "tel".  In archaeological terms, it refers to a site of a city that has been settled, conquered, resettled, conquered and you get the idea.  Eventually, there is nothing left but a large hill or mound.  These exist all over.  Not all have been excavated.  So, if there is a plain and then an odd hill or mound coming up out of the middle of it, most likely it is a "tel" or a site of an ancient city.  So a name like, "Tel-Aviv" means that there was an ancient city site at Aviv.  I never saw the tel at Tel-Aviv, but I assume there is one there somewhere.

There is about 13 acres to Megiddo.  There is too much to see.  One could spend all day at this site.  It is so fascinating.  

One wishes to take hundreds of pictures of piles of rocks that used to be a wall, or a house, or an altar. They believe the city gates may date back to King Solomon's time.  Apparently there are some characteristics of these gates that share some features that can be dated to Solomon's reign.  It was fascinating to touch these gates and connect with antiquity.

I also mentioned altars.  Megiddo has several altars that are of Cannanite origin which date to earlier Old Testament times.

In the ground are at least two (that's how many I saw) deep pits that I assumed were cisterns or wells.  On opposite sides of these pits were very narrow stones built into the walls that provided stairways down into the pits. All I can say is that the inhabitants of Megiddo must not have had much for hips.  I don't know how a person could walk down such a narrow set of stairs. No handrails either.  Osha would have a fit.  What I discover is that these are not wells or cisterns.  They are granary's.  They filled these pits with food for their animals.  That explained why in the cracks between the stones all the way down were small pieces of straw.  Ancient straw.  Amazing.

To me, one of the most fascinating aspects of Megiddo was the water supply.  Being on top of a hill presents some problems to having enough water to quench everybody's thirst plus your animals.  Having enough water was especially a problem in times of siege which was a pretty common situation at Megiddo.  The inhabitants of Megiddo solved this problem by chiseling down through solid bedrock about 150 feet to a water source.  It is unbelievable.  They now have a stairway (remember the stairs?  There are a LOT of them at Megiddo) that takes you all the way down to the lowest level which still has water in it.  How they knew it was down there I'll never know.  Maybe they just chiseled away until they found water.  It is a very steep and long set of stairs.  Going down is not hard but coming up is quite an exercise session.  Descending and ascending a near vertical set of stairs with about 160 other people is quite an exercise in patience.  The nice thing is about 10 feel down or so it gets much cooler than the surface air.  It is quite pleasant.  

The way out was another tunnel through the bedrock that was also another 150 feet almost straight up.  It took much longer to get out than in.  Nearing the top you could feel the heat of the day increasing as we neared the opening.  After all the walking at Ceasarea, Herod's Aquaduct, all the stairs at Mt. Carmel, and all the hiking and stairs of Megiddo, some of the group is starting to flag.  We have had quite a workout and the day is still not over.  

I have to admit, I forgot my camera in the bus when we visited Megiddo.  Don't know how that happened, but when I reached for my camera in my bag, it was not there.  Fortunately, Indiana Jolie, a.k.a. JoLynn took plenty of pictures so all was not lost.  If you travel to Israel, Megiddo is a "must see" site.