Palestine

Today we left the apartment at 8am to head down to the City of David. It was a warm, sticky morning but the walk down through the Armenian quarter was pleasantly quiet until we got to the traffic, roadworks and excavation dust that always seems to be a feature of the Dung Gate.
We got our tickets to do Loss’ favourite activity- Hezekiah’s Tunnel- and we just managed to beat a tour group so we pretty much had the tunnel to ourselves.
It’s extraordinary to think about the workmen chipping away from either end to meet in the middle- and my favourite part is to see the direction of the strikes of their picks on the rock face change at that spot.
There was a very pleasant surprise once we emerged at the Pool of Siloam. The excavations of the pool have extended dramatically- the Arab houses that butted up against the site have been demolished and the full extent of the pool is gradually being uncovered.

We had a bit of a poke around into the excavated street leading up to the Temple Mount. Only the lower part of the actual Herodian street has been excavated, but this has been expanded to show where a shop existed off its side and they had this space decked out to show what it would have looked like.
As no one else was coming up this ‘cul de sac’ street section, we used this as a convenient place to change out of wet shoes and shorts and into dry gear.

Having checked to make sure it was OK to exit the site and then return a little later, we headed down the Kidron a little further to explore something I have been keen to do for years- finding the burial place of Annas in the Hinnom valley, still called Akeldama today.
Loss wasn’t especially keen to get down into this Arab dominated area, but she didn’t object too much. From the Ritmeyer’s writings I knew where the Monastery of St Onuphrius was and that that burial cave was in its lower grounds and I expected that we would have to walk up the hill on the other side of the Hinnom valley and descend back down from there.
However, on our walk down in the lower part of the Kidron just where it joins the Valley of Hinnom I was able to spot the cave up a little way on the hill slightly to our left.
We walked down the valley another 50m and spotted a likely path / scramble up to the cave through an Arab building site. Having asked the worker via some verbal and other gestures if it was OK to walk up through his building site, he seemed to nod in agreement indicating our best path, so after a scramble up the hill, climbing over some rubble and broken fences we were in front of the cave.
There was a camel lazing on the ground just to it’s left and he didn’t seem too concerned about us, but we kept one eye on him just in case because I have a great distrust of camels.
What I wasn’t prepared for was being charged by a flock of sheep as we went to enter the cave- it turned out there were a lot of lambs inside and mum, dad and various other family members were VERY keen to keep them safe from us Australian intruders.
I’ve never encountered aggressive sheep before and I wasn’t about to argue with them, so we backed away and everyone seemed to relax then.
Photos and video taken, also noting the direct line of sight up to the triple gate (the priestly entrance to the Temple Mount) was quite exciting for me.
On the other hand, Loss was excited when we got back to the safety of the pool of Siloam.
It was now time to do the walk back up to the Davidson Centre via the ‘drain’. However, we stopped a little while at Siloam to watch the excavations taking place. I have always wanted to do a little bit of archeological digging, so I approached the chief archaeologist and asked if I could just ever so briefly have a bit of a dig. Of course the answer was ‘No’, mainly because of insurance …..
Not to be completely thwarted, a few meters further along at the raw edge of the dig in the public area, I saw there were absolutely hundreds of pieces of (probably Byzantine) pottery sticking out of the edge.
A couple of quick blows on a likely looking piece with a small rock and voila- I dug out my first artefact from the pool of Siloam!

We then started up the ‘drain’. We worked our way up - some parts are very narrow, slippery and quite low- but we enjoyed picking out the various features, seeing where the road slabs formed the roof, hearing the excavations continuing above our heads and seeing where the little golden priestly bell was discovered.
Emerging out underneath Robinson’s arch was not a surprise but seeing grey and cloudy skies certainly was. It even looked as though rain was possible despite locals often saying ‘it won’t rain again until October’.
We headed back up the stairs to the Jewish quarter and had a little lunch at the same place- again.
By now we are on such good terms with the proprietor that family photos were being shown on Loss’ phone.
There’s a moment’s pause before our friend stabbing his finger at Loss’ phone he says says with a slightly concerned tone in his deep, booming voice. “And who is DIS?”
I couldn’t quite see the phone and who exactly was raising his concerns. A Mossad agent who has photo bombed one of our family snaps? Someone ‘of middle eastern appearance’ wearing a suspicious looking ‘vest’?
“Ah, that’s Sam our son-in-law - he couldn’t be at the birthday celebration so we had to have a cardboard cut out of him”
He did a good job of pretending that this was a satisfactory answer and we changed the subject back to the deliciousness of his falafels . . .

After this brief lunch stop it was time to visit the Montefiore Windmill which was about a 25 minute walk away. We headed off via the Armenian Quarter and exited the Zion Gate. As this is very close to the ‘Gate of the Essenes’ (the Herodian stairs and gate into his palace which is quite likely where Jesus was tried by Pilate) we made a slight detour to re visit it and observed some new signage which also supports this idea.

We then walked to the Montefiore Windmill (via the Sultan’s Pool) which was a project undertaken by the British Jewish philanthropist Sir Moses Montefiore and built in 1857 in order to help the impoverished Jews of the area become more self sufficient. It was the latest technology of the time - a wind powered flour mill - and in addition to building this he also helped established the neighbourhood around it. Today it is a very ritzy part of Jerusalem.
This was a significant step in the reestablishment of a Jewish population in Jerusalem and it was an endeavour that Bro. Roberts supported some few years later.

The interior of the base of the windmill is now a wine bar with an adjacent outdoor seating area. We had taken our photos and had a bit of a poke around and just as we were about to leave…. it started raining.
We had brought no umbrellas or jackets as ‘it won’t rain again until October’ and the only place to shelter was under the umbrellas of the outdoor wine bar.
We took a seat and ordered a very expensive glass of Israeli red wine to sip on until the rain abated. We started chatting with some locals who were also delaying their departure due to the rain…. ‘It shouldn’t be raining, not until October’.
It was about another 35 minute walk to the Israel museum so we set off, however after only a few minutes it started raining again. This was playing havoc with my hair (not to mention Loss’) so we tried to hail multiple taxis to complete the trip. This endeavour was decidedly unsuccessful so we simply continued walking on in the rain and eventually arrived at the Israel museum looking somewhat bedraggled.

Once we dried off a little we made our tour of the museum which is always fascinating. With the help of a phone call to Bro. Stephen Whitehouse in the UK, we were also eventually able to locate a small seal belonging to Ahab’s wife, Jezebel.
A quick look at the outdoor model (which hasn’t been updated for a long time in the light of new discoveries) as well as The Shrine of the Book, and we were done by about 6.30pm (they stay open late on Tuesdays).
The day had now cleared to a beautiful evening.

We’d decided we would eat out tonight and thought we would try the YMCA again for old times’ sake. It wasn’t directly towards home, but we got our feet moving and got there ready for a good meal. We were there well before the kitchen had closed, but when we asked for a table we were told ‘Oh, we don’t serve food anymore, just drinks and snacks’.
The only snack offering was a slice of reheated quiche so we gave that a miss and headed back to our reliable ‘Zumis’ for an excellent meal.
Our friendly waiter was up for a bit of a chat as well, and commented about how unusual it was to get rain today- ‘normally, it shouldn’t rain until October’
We got through the door at 8.45pm after another big day - 30k steps and 21 km of walking with a backpack of wet Hezekiah’s tunnel clothes now to deal with.

And I’ll also need to go and do something with my hair.Read more