Herodion, According to Ehud Netzer

One of the last things I did before the midnight hike was email a stranger from the Herodion website, asking how to visit on Sunday. He responded when I got back from Kedumim, giving me a bus number (it's in the West Bank) and hours. I found a partner, and we made plans for Sunday morning. On the bus rides over we read up on the site, which our Archaeology of Jerusalem teacher had told us about. I had even watched the National Geographic special showcasing the spot, because just two years ago, our teacher's teacher, named Ehud Netzer, who had been studying Herod and digging at his sites for 30+ years, found what he believed to be Herod's Tomb. You can watch some of it here, showing his press conference (on my campus). The Nat'l Geographic page is here.

Links About Herodion I read before visiting
Wikipedia
Jewish Magazine (comprehensive)
Geophysical Exploration in Israel
NYTimes 1983
Slate (political implications of location)

The bus dropped us off at a roundabout right outside the site of the mountain. Before proceeding, Elana and I looked around, and found red signs surrounding the roundabout, stating that Israeli's were not allowed in to these areas because they were Palestinian Territory. Herodion though was a national park, and right next door was an army base, since an Israeli was killed on the mountain in the 80's.

We found pretty early on that there was not going to be a tour for us, so we carefully climbed ascended the path, until we found signs for the Tomb of Herod. But when we followed the signs, we found the area gated off. Herod's mausoleum was visible, but we couldn't go anywhere near it. I was pretty disappointed, but couldn't find a way to climb over the fence because everything was really steep.

We returned to the main path, and when we made it to the top, we were amazed to find the site filled with digging projects. People all around were shoveling and painting. Moreover, there was no Hebrew. The diggers were Arabs, and those who weren't spoke English. I immediately asked a guy if Ehud Netzer was here, but he said no. We continued exploring the upper palace, where we found capitals and a site that was converted into a synagogue. We then ascended into a very intricate cistern system, originally created by Herod, but then expanded during each of the two Jewish revolts. On the way out we found a group of workers painting something on walls, and the same guy who told me Netzer wasn't in mentioned that he had in fact showed up, but couldn't tell me where.



We went running down and around the mountain looking for the world expert on Herod, until we found him giving a tour to a few elderly friends, in English. He was standing right in front of a "No Entrance" sign, and those were his first words to us. I was unshaken, and went right into the details of my studies, my teacher, etc. He didn't say anything, so for a while I just stood there with Elana while he showed his friends pictures from his booklet of the area around the mountain.

Then he opened the gate, and I turned to a woman nearby who spoke Hebrew, and asked if I could go in. She turned to Ehud, who responded simply "בבקשה" "please." We were in.

Over the next few minutes, Elana and I socialized a little so we weren't so obviously mooching. The woman I had talked to earlier turned out to be Ehud's wife, and also a graduate of my high school in Philadelphia (extremely small classes). It was an amazing coincidence. She and Netzer took us to and explained the discoveries of the Royal Theater (which he says he calls the "royal theater." God, he's the only one who can call it that, cuz he found it!) Herod's Tomb, and the cisterns nearby. Elana and I helped up the family friends through the steep inclines, and we also got to talking. One couple was from the Chicago area, and the wife was an art history teacher, so she had a little to say about the designs on the stones that were found. Devorah (Ehud's wife) even told me that they were meters away from finding the Tomb in the 70's, when they found a cistern, but they didn't continue digging there. the platform itself was amazing and still very sharp in detail, but just being there and being able to touch was something else.



The fortress is a lot like Masada, but a younger project. The archaeologist behind Masada has since passed, there's already a museum and there's tons of tourism, but Herodion gets less because it's in the West Bank and because it was no more of an architectural masterpiece than Masada (except that Herod turned a hill into a mountain). That has since changed with the discovery of the Tomb, following Josephus' directions, and it's only a matter of time until there's a museum here too.

The very last place we went to (Elana and I were rushed because we wanted to catch the bus back) was a small wooden shed at the top of the Theater. It was closed off because inside Ehud found paintings of a special style called dry plaster. These don't usually survive, and they're different from fresco, which I think are wet plaster. We walked in and Devorah asked me to climb to the top of the dirt mounds to lift the green felt curtains covering them. She asked me. It was a tremendous honor in my view to sneak into a tour with the expert and then help unveil these exclusive finds. The pictures themselves were of windows, if I remember correctly, and there were some other designs around as well. It was really steep and there was near nowhere to stand, but as you can see, all the while I was documenting. Devorah explained the difficulty in preserving the finds from the elements, and tourists, as well as funding problems. Then I got a family photo, wished Ehud a happy 75th, and hit the road, running down the mountain with Elana.



We arrived at the place where the bus dropped us off, but we saw no buses anywhere. I was still reeling from the last hour, and didn't see an Arab shepherd come up to us. He kept asking for a suuura, which we eventually understood as picture. Perhaps he wanted to take a picture of me. Some of his friends showed up, and they offered us taxi rides in Hebrew, but the taxis in the West Bank aren't allowed into Jerusalem, so we couldn't use them. Then a Humvee pulled up to us and some Israeli soldiers told us not to stay there, that the bus wouldn't be stopping there, and that we should go to the other side of the road. Long story short: we crossed Herodion, found a main road with vehicles with Israeli license plates, found the bus stop but didn't want to wait an hour for the next one, so we hitchhiked our way out of the West Bank to Jerusalem (following two other Israelis who got into the car of a security officer, who then offered us a ride. There's an etiquette to tramping in Israel).

Herodion can be seen from Jerusalem, and likewise.

All Night Hike, All Day Artsy, All Weekend Kedumim

I realize now why it's a blessing to sleep one night each day: When you're about to go to sleep, sometimes you drift first into your activities and experiences of the day, before the brain enters hibernation. If you don't sleep for an entire night, you have the mental homework of recounting everything you did as your level of consciousness decreased, over two days. Follow?

Thursday night, 22:30, A tour bus drove south to the lower tip of the Dead Sea, at the edge of the Judean Desert, and a group of college students hiked all night around a river called Nachal Pratzim,as well as Mount Sdom. Yeah, like Sodom and Gemorrah. It was salty at the end, but at the beginning the river was all very smooth with this powdery type of rock that got on everything, and was nothing like sand. We even played hide and seek, one of my personal favorites, for at least an hour, following an in depth lecture into the art of camouflage. There's a Hebrew acrostic that covers all the details, from shadows and smells to the glimmer of a weapon. The pictures were near impossible to take, because I had to keep the exposure open for as long as was possible, 15 seconds. Because of that, I had to put the camera on a surface, and usually chose the ground. Still pictures came out, and we humans really adjusted well to the night vision. The moon was almost too bright, and it prevented us from seeing the stars for most of the night. Fortunately, the darkest hour really is right before the dawn, so we lay on the salty sands of Sodom and learned how to navigate using astrology. We arrived at the end on a lookout of the Dead Sea and watched the sky brighten up before returning to campus.



Pictures of the Night


We arrived back in Jerusalem at 8. I barely slept considering I was a bobble head on the bus ride. But instead of following the track of any normal tired human being, I spent half an hour looking up bus schedules, and packing for the weekend, and then went right back on another bus to Tel Aviv to see the creative works of the artists of Tel Aviv at Nachalat Binyamin. This street hops with performances and a crafts market on Tuesdays and Fridays. Knowing the limited time I had left, I chose to go now rather than at a later time when I would probably be awake. Moreover we had a relaxing breakfast/lunch nearby, but it left with a little more than an hour to run through the market and explore. Some of the stuff was really nifty. See for yourself.



That one hour time limit was due to the fact that I had to get back to Jerusalem to go back to Kedumim, the the West Bank settlement near Nablus and home of my wonderful madricha Na'ama who hosted me on Passover. This time I wasn't going with Will and Chandler, but rather three girls, from Rothberg, and when we arrived at Na'ama's house, her mom immediately recognized me as התרנגול היחיד בלול, meaning the only rooster in the coop. Altogether there were six girls, and me. It probably would have made a bigger difference if I were awake, but I gathered all the energy I had for the wonderful Shabbat meal, and then slept the night and day away. Saturday, we took a nice stroll around the neighborhood, and enjoyed much intellectual conversation about the Conflict. There were also a lot of visitors and eating, all the time. It was simply a great way to wrap up a busy few days.

A Day of Sides, Not Corners or Angles

9th Grade geometry was my worst year of math, and probably in spite of it, some stuck. Try to find a corner in this run around (excluding pictures):

Today the Archaeology of Jerusalem class toured a mountain with a wonderful view (except today because it was foggy and rained pelts of water) of the Old City, called Armon Hanatziv. How do you tour a mountain? By walking through it; that is, through a water system created at least a hundred years before the common era, and then used and renovated until about a hundred years ago. Clearly the water problem in Jerusalem has a history of its own.

There were two aqueducts established to carry water in the city of Jerusalem,  before or during the Roman Period. Water, and great amounts of it, were necessary for the animal sacrifices which took place at the Jewish Temple, for the civilians and tourism as it increased with King Herod's revamping of the Temple Mount, as well as for Jewish Ritual Baths. However, in order to schlep water from a far distance, you need the aid of gravity, and Jerusalem was already in the mountains. South of the city the ridges are higher, but not by much, and water is still hard to come by. An area was chosen a little south of Bethlehem, and a site now known as Solomon's Pools was created (it bears no relation to Solomon). From there, water was channeled to various areas, including Herod's retreat and self-erected memorial known as Herodion, and Jerusalem. There was an upper and a lower aqueduct that ran to the city. The upper went directly to the Jaffa Gate, where Herod's Palace, as well as cisterns and pools were located. The lower one though wound around the Jerusalem hills, eventually feeding right into the Temple Mount for use with sacrifices. Timing is uncertain, plaster colors different between the two trackes. Therefore, the lower aquaduct may have been from the Hasmonean period (167-63BCE) before Herod's time (37-4BCE). We took the lower one for a spin, walking along a very narrow path, which the Turks had dug a few meters deeper during the Ottoman Period. This allowed for us to fit through without crawling, and also demonstrated how long this system was used for bringing water into Jerusalem. There were six shafts along the way which were cut through to the top of the mountain, allowing for air and light.

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Thankfully we didn't need to round any curves, but some people got stuck.

Then in the evening, for a change of pace, I joined school organized trip to the National Paraplegic Basketball Championship between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. This was an amazing experience, not only by admiring the tremendous upper body strength and physical play on the court, but also by seeing the fans shouting and cheering. The game was honored with the attendance of the Mayor of Jerusalem, Nir Barkat, and the Knesset speaker, Reuven Rivlin, who gave the speech at the Har Herzl Independence Day Ceremony. Jerusalem never led, and while they brought the lead down from 11 to 6 in the 3rd quarter, they never caught up to Tel Aviv. Regardless, it was a fast paced and very exciting game, with kosher hot dogs and halftime entertainment!