Today is the Jewish Sabbath and conservative Jews are not
allowed to do most normal activities like cooking, driving, etc. In Jerusalem, all public transportation is
shut down. At our hotel, all the food
was prepared yesterday and just kept warm for us to eat today. They are not allowed to press elevator
buttons so there is one ‘Sabbath’ elevator that just runs continuously and
stops at EVERY floor. The Sabbath ends
at sunset, so I hope dinner will be better.
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| Our Hotel |
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The "Sabbath" elevator with every button on,
all day long. |
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| Inside the spa at the hotel. |
We loaded up in two 4 wheel drive Toyota Land Cruisers and
headed-off road down thru the Judean Dessert into the Negev Dessert.
The ‘mountains’ are really salt in a layer
that’s 4 miles deep.
The salt actually
‘flows’, like bread dough and it’s being pushed up fairly fast (in geological
terms).
We followed a ‘wadi’ (like a
gully) up from the dessert floor to the top of Mount Sodom (across from the
Biblical Sodom and Gomorrah).
At the
top we were at the highest point of the lowest place in the area.
(The peak is at 500 feet below sea level,
while the Dead Sea is 1,300 feet below sea level.)
This shallow part of the Dead Sea is used for
evaporation pools where the sun evaporates the water and leaves salt, pot ash,
and bromide to be harvested.
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| Stopping in the wadi on the way up Mt. Sodom |
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Using Keith's body as the map of Israel
(i.e. left armpit = sea of Galilee, navel = Jerusalem,
right knee = Gaza, etc.) |
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| Looking out over the Dead Sea evaporation ponds. |
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Some people call this "Lot's Wife" who was
turned into a pillar of salt. It has
absolutely NO basis in fact..... |
We had lunch in a different wadi beneath acacia trees and
were very comfortable for being in the dessert.
We returned to the hotel and immediately boarded our bus and
travelled north to visit Masada.
It’s
very large fortress built on top of a plateau that was very easy to defend.
There may have been a small Hasmonean
fortress there prior to the 1
st century BC, but the major
construction was done by Herod the Great.
It was intended as his vacation ‘get-away’ and also as a place to hide
as he was, and deserved to be, despised by the people he ruled.
There were gardens, and swimming pools built
high in the air with huge store houses for food and a water system that held
several years’ worth of water.
In about
66 AD, the Jews revolted and managed to capture Masada and many other Roman
garrisons that were lightly guarded.
All
that did was wake the sleeping giant of the Roman Empire and they sent entire Legions to Palestine to stop the rebellion.
As the Romans swept south, Masada was the last place that that had not
been re-captured by the Romans. At the time, it held over 1,000 soldiers and other
people.
In 73 AD, a Legion of 8,000
Roman soldiers surrounded Masada living in 8 camps that were built.
Over several months time, they built a siege
wall around the entire mountain and a ‘ramp’ up the back side of the mountain
so they could roll a tall ower up the ramp, with a battering ram inside.
They eventually penetrated the walls and
gates and prepared to invade the fortress the next morning.
The leader of the of the Jews convinced
everyone that they should not allow themselves, their women, or the children to
be killed or taken slaves so the entire camp all died at the
hands of each other and finally suicide for that last ones alive.
When the Romans entered the city the next
morning there was no one left to defeat.
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| Loading the tram for the trip up the mountain. |
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| View from the top |
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| Israeli soldiers on patrol for the Sabbath. |
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This was the 'hot room' in the Roman Bath. Built up the floor
and had tiles embedded the walls that had the hot air from
an external fire circulating thru them. |
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| Another lesson....... |
After the fall of the Roman Empire, Masada was vacant for
several centuries. Later, during the Byzantine
period some monks lived there in isolation and built a church.
We finished the day with dinner at the hotel and a group
meeting with our guide to discuss ways to make the tour better in the
future. We couldn’t think of much……
