We were with other families and with members of the Archaeological Seminars Institute. We had to climb down inside a hole where the excavation was occurring. For some reason, I was afraid going down because I have a fear of falling and at first I decided not to participate; however, after everyone went down, I decided to go. There I saw my group digging away and I really didn't feeling like doing so, so I took the task of taking photos. It was going slowly but it wasn't until Patrick and David uncovered something was that was hard and curved. At first we thought it was another building block of the city but as they continued to dig even further, they found out that it was a fully intact water jug. Just imagine their faces when they were finally able to pull it out of the earth and to see it was intact! Unbelievable... a 2,000 year old jug found by college students and not by archaeologists.
We then got out of the cave and we started to sift through the stuff we all discovered. Although it was mainly rocks and clay, we found bits and pieces of pottery and bones. It was pretty cool.. Next we went through a cave tunnel that hasn't been fully excavated. It was pretty dark as all we had to guides us were a path of lit candles. There was a part where we had to go through a small hole and just slowly go through it and I was scared because I was unsure how deep it was but I did it! Also, there were a lot of other passageways where we had to crawl on our backs and it was quite interesting. I have never gotten so dirty in my life. By the end, I was quite proud of myself for going through that as I would have never done it.
Lastly, we saw a fully excavated cave that was opened to the public and we saw the pigeon stoop and the olive press. The people of Maresha carved openings in the wall for the pigeons so they could either eat them or use their feces for fertilizer, which was used for the olive trees. Also they used the olive press to make olive oil which was used for making soap, for consumption, for trade and for burning lamps.
After we got our certificates, we grabbed lunch at the gas station and Davidal gave us a tour of the Bell Caves. Originally there were 800 bell caves and 80 of them were connected by passageways that became a vast underground networks. Most of these caves were used as quarries, which supplied the materials to the cities of Bet-Guvrin and other cities in the coastal plain. After a full day in the heat, we drove back to Jerusalem to rest.
Tomorrow we will be heading for Eliat and the Red Sea where we will go to Masada and other places of interest. I'm really excited about this upcoming trip but we won't have internet access where we are staying so I just wanted to let all of you know that we'll be back hopefully by Thursday. Ciao.
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