Beersheba means "well of seven" or "the well of the oath". Abraham dug a well here and affirmed his rights to it by swearing an oath with King Abimelech. Other events that took place here: Abraham starts on his journey to Mt. Moriah, to sacrifice Isaac, from Beersheba; Isaac sends Jacob from Beersheba to find a wife; Jacob is living here when he finds out that Joseph is NOT dead and they all leave for Egypt.
This picture is of a four-horned altar. This was a sign of power. And if someone wanted to claim sanctuary here they would hold onto the horns of the altar. The "sanctuary-claimer" here is Kaleb Muhlestein -- 9 year old faculty son.
This is Professor Muhlestein teaching about the four-horned altar. Notice the hard hats:
This cute girl is Professor Muhlestein's 12-year old daughter, Tashara. The hard hats were for our later trip down into the water system of Beersheba -- low ceilings! :)
Over the left shoulder of this handsome fellow in the hard hat, is one of the gates of Beersheba. Ancient cities like Beersheba had a way to make their gates harder to access by enemies. They would build several gates, each one forcing the enemy to turn direction before attacking the next gate. If they made it through the boiling oil and stones being thrown down on them and actually conquered the first gate, they would then have to turn to attack the second gate. This left them vulnerable to arrows raining down from the gate towers. It also made it impossible to use a battering ram. Pretty smart, huh?
Another view of the gate. Gates of the city were also a meeting place for the Elders, who would gather there each day and "hold court". Anyone, who had a complaint could go to the gate and speak with the Elders who would then rule on the issue.
They were also considered a "no-man's land" because those who had been cast out as unclean, could come to the gate and the Elders would decide whether or not they were now clean and could be allowed into the city.
This is one of the wells for the city, as our good looking guide is pointing out [with his thumb]
As we walked through the city, I took pictures of things I thought were interesting: This is called a casement wall.
The wall behind the stone pillars is another casement wall: 2 walls running parallel with each other and then the space between the walls is filled in with rubble and dirt to make a wider, thick wall.
Rather than hoping you could see the actual room in the remains, I just took a picture of what it would have looked like. This is a drawing of a four-bedroom house.
There was a modern stairway that took us up to a look-out platform. The following 4 photos are looking in each direction from the platform.
The next 2 pics are of the stairway going down into the water system. It looks scarier than it actually was. In ancient times, cities like this one would find a water source outside of the wall and dig a tunnel up into the city, so that under siege, the people could access the water within the safety of the wall. They would hide the source on the outside so the enemy couldn't tamper with it or have access to it themselve. So, we went in here and came out, outside of the walls.
Us at the altar -- then we turned in our hard hats, thank goodness!
Our second stop of the day was to Tel Arad -- another site like Beersheba. The line that you see below is the division between the original stone -- below the line, and the reconstruction above.
This is the sacrificial altar of Arad. These are the next human sacrifices! ;)
In Exodus it says, And if thou wilt make me an altar of stone, thou shalt not build if of hewn stone: for if thou lift up thy tool upon it, thou hast polluted it. Notice the unhewn stone of the altar, below:
Remember in the movie The Ten Commandments, when the slaves are stomping straw into the mud to make bricks for the Egyptians? Well the little stick things in this picture are pieces of straw!
This is the holy of holies.
The excavators have found something down below here -- we tried to see to the bottom, but it was too dark. I think there were 3 levels of ladders that we COULD see.
Our final destination for day 1 was a kibbutz right near the Egyptian border. Kent was still not feeling well (he'd been sick all the week before we left). So, he and I went to our rooms at the kibbutz while the rest of the group went out into the desert. They played in the sand dunes, learned about kibbutz life, and had some kind of short scripture discussion/pondering time. Here is what our room looked like:
When the buses returned and everyone had checked into their rooms we were fed a hamburger dinner by the pool. They had blankets and/or low tables where we could sit on the ground to eat. The burgers were very good but Israeli style, not american. The meat was hamburger, the "buns" were pita and toppings were mostly things you would put on a falafel. Delish!!! They also had french fries and drinks. The rest of the evening people swam in their beautiful pool and then we all hit the hay. We had an early departure the next morning.
This is one of the wells for the city, as our good looking guide is pointing out [with his thumb]
As we walked through the city, I took pictures of things I thought were interesting: This is called a casement wall.
The wall behind the stone pillars is another casement wall: 2 walls running parallel with each other and then the space between the walls is filled in with rubble and dirt to make a wider, thick wall.
Rather than hoping you could see the actual room in the remains, I just took a picture of what it would have looked like. This is a drawing of a four-bedroom house.
There was a modern stairway that took us up to a look-out platform. The following 4 photos are looking in each direction from the platform.
The next 2 pics are of the stairway going down into the water system. It looks scarier than it actually was. In ancient times, cities like this one would find a water source outside of the wall and dig a tunnel up into the city, so that under siege, the people could access the water within the safety of the wall. They would hide the source on the outside so the enemy couldn't tamper with it or have access to it themselve. So, we went in here and came out, outside of the walls.
Us at the altar -- then we turned in our hard hats, thank goodness!
Our second stop of the day was to Tel Arad -- another site like Beersheba. The line that you see below is the division between the original stone -- below the line, and the reconstruction above.
This is the sacrificial altar of Arad. These are the next human sacrifices! ;)
In Exodus it says, And if thou wilt make me an altar of stone, thou shalt not build if of hewn stone: for if thou lift up thy tool upon it, thou hast polluted it. Notice the unhewn stone of the altar, below:
Remember in the movie The Ten Commandments, when the slaves are stomping straw into the mud to make bricks for the Egyptians? Well the little stick things in this picture are pieces of straw!
This is the holy of holies.
The excavators have found something down below here -- we tried to see to the bottom, but it was too dark. I think there were 3 levels of ladders that we COULD see.
Our final destination for day 1 was a kibbutz right near the Egyptian border. Kent was still not feeling well (he'd been sick all the week before we left). So, he and I went to our rooms at the kibbutz while the rest of the group went out into the desert. They played in the sand dunes, learned about kibbutz life, and had some kind of short scripture discussion/pondering time. Here is what our room looked like:
When the buses returned and everyone had checked into their rooms we were fed a hamburger dinner by the pool. They had blankets and/or low tables where we could sit on the ground to eat. The burgers were very good but Israeli style, not american. The meat was hamburger, the "buns" were pita and toppings were mostly things you would put on a falafel. Delish!!! They also had french fries and drinks. The rest of the evening people swam in their beautiful pool and then we all hit the hay. We had an early departure the next morning.
