On Friday we went to an archeological dig. In the time of the Maccabees the people who lived on the site (who were not Jewish) had dug out cellars from the hillside. The hill was chalk and limestone and they had used the stone they pulled out of the cellars to build houses above and then they used the cellars for storage. We were told that there was a Jewish ruler at the time who said covert to Judaism or leave or die. So they left. (The need for circumcism being a strong disincentive to conversion) Before they left they tore down their houses and threw the rubble into the cellars. So these cellars were filled almost to the top with “house debris” - mostly rock, and also lots of pottery and bone. There are over 5000 of what they called “caves” and what I would call “rooms” carved into this hillside. Since mostly it’s all the same stuff and very little is of archeological significance, they let tourists come, dig a little and see what they can find. So they took us down into a room where they had already hauled out about 8 – 10 feet of dirt and debris, and hadn’t reached the floor yet, handed us spades with long handles (hoes, but the blade came to a point) and told us to go to town. There was no grid – all the “good stuff” from one room went into any pink bucket and the dirt went into black buckets. Had we been in a different room the “good stuff” would have gone into a different colored bucket – they kept the stuff from each room separate. The boys dug and I took pictures. They found lots of pottery shards. Two pieces were clearly the bottom of bowls or jugs.
It was nice and cool in the cellar so after way too short a time, we were led back up the ladder outside where we were shown how they sift the soil to find any thing the diggers might have missed. Then we were given the choice to go through an unexcavated cave or a fully excavated cave. The kids all chose the unexcavated one and the grandparents all chose the excavated one. It was a good decision on the part of the grand parents because on the trip through the excavated cave, the debris was within a few feet of the ceiling, and the trip involved sliding through holes only a foot or so diameter and, in one place, a drop through a hole 3 – 4 feet to a room below.
On the trip, we saw niches carved into the walls and one of the rooms had an archway where the ceiling was carved bricks set into the ceiling. The tour guide was somewhat of a tease. At one point, she pointed to a room to one side and said, “This is my room. But it’s closed because it’s too messy.” Later on some of the kids commented on the cobwebs and she told them that one of their jobs was to clear up the cobwebs. Just when she almost had them convinced she wasn’t kidding, she said that we were going to move on and they should follow when whey were done. When we came to the last hole, she said that going through the hole was like being born, only feet first. We came out and met up with the rest of the group and heard a talk about what they had found here: pottery, coins, one set of earrings, one ketubah written on pottery (probably a draft) Also they described how big some of the vessels were using 5-year old Natalie to provide a visual picture of the size. They said the base of the big jugs was very small - only a couple inches wide and elongated and they would cut holes in the wooden floor and put the elongated base in the hole. This, plus a stick through the handle would keep the jug upright, even in a ship in turbulent seas. Lastly everyone was allowed to take some pieces home with them. And we bought T-shirts.
Next they provided us lunch – sandwiches, which normally
neither boy will eat – but both boys ate what they could and didn’t complain.
Next there was a rebellion. We were supposed to go to a bullet factory
near Rehovot and then to Mode’in, but nobody wanted to go to Mode’in, so we
went to the bullet factory and then went back to
The picture below left shows the bakery. You are looking at an enormous oven which could be slid to one side, revealing a second access to the room below. The oven is slid to one side, and you can see someone on the left about to go down the stairway there. The picture on the right shows the first in a long line of bullet making machines.
More bullet machines.
Only those kibbutzniks who worked in the factory knew about the factory. Some of the measures they took hide the factory from even other kibbutzniks were scraping metal fragments off their shoes and using a tanning booth to make it look like they had been working all day in the fields.
I kept expecting them to say “And then on day such and such, the British discovered the factory and killed everyone,” but they never did – the British never discovered the factory. When independence was declared, the need for secrecy disappeared and the machines were moved to a more convenient place. The museum was only created a few years ago.
Then back to the hotel. I ran around for what felt like an hour trying to make arrangements for the next day to see David after our visit with Miri. Then we fed the boys (pizza- from room service) and I took them swimming. The pool was too cold for Benjamin and me so we decided to try the kiddie pool (about 2 – 3 feet deep max) to see if it was warmer. It was, but not enough. However there was a jet of water shooting into the pool and the boys had a good time with it. They started a game where Jonathan, in the pool, would try to direct the spray towards Benjamin with his hands while Benjamin, out of the pool, tried to direct the spray towards Jonathan with his feet. They played for almost half an hour and then we went upstairs and changed for Shabbat. The bus took us to the Western Wall and we had services on the courtyard in front of the wall. Then the men and women separated and went up to the wall. We joined up together and walked back to the hotel. Dinner was a four-course extravaganza at the hotel for the entire tour. We had arranged for Stuart and Marci and kids to join us, and another family on the tour had also arranged for another family to join – but the hotel didn’t get enough settings on the tables - they were two short. It took a long time for that balagan to get straightened out, but finally we got on with dinner. First we had a choice between gefilte fish and chopped liver. But the gefilte fish was very sweet and the horseradish was not horseradish with a few beets, it was beets with a little horseradish. The next course was gazpacho or chicken consommé with veal ravioli. The chicken consommé had 1 veal ravioli in it. The main course was veal shoulder or chicken. Benjamin tried the veal shoulder, but to my surprise he did not like it. Dessert was lemon sorbet in red berry soup or chocolate sesame mousse with coffee sauce. The boys had hung in there through a very slow and long dinner because they wanted the sorbet. When it came, it was a sweet lemon soup with two raspberries and a dollop of meringue with a dollop of sherbet on top of it. The boys were very disappointed. We all got to bed very late – past 11.