Apparently my blogging is going to be of a bit of a sporadic nature. But that's how it happens sometimes. I just wrote another one last night, so you might want to check it out first and come back to this one later (although I guess it doesn't matter all that much). Anyways, I just had a really cool morning that I can't resist sharing!
This morning, as every Friday morning, I went to Archaeology of Jerusalem at 8am, a bit tired and wondering again whatever possessed me to think that taking a class from 8-11am at the end of a week would be a good idea. I think I just got my answer. First, as I've said before, my professor is one of the leading archaeologists in Jerusalem. He's very well known, and it's been said of him that he knows personally every cave in and around Jerusalem (and I don't doubt it). Just listening to him in class proves the man knows more at 60-something than I could ever hope to know in about 4 lifetimes. He just stands there and lectures, and I sit there thinking, I can't write fast enough to put down what he's just casually talking about. He brings notes, but only looks at them about once every 1/2 hour. It's mind boggling.
Today in class, come about 10:30 he's calmly lecturing about and old wall from the Hasmonean dynasty that has been found and excavated in several places. He gives us the framework for where it runs and talks about the importance of the discovery, just as he has with every other archaeological find that we've talked about for the last 2 1/2 hours. And then, with the same, even tone that he has been using for the entire class, he suggests that maybe we wouldn't mind going to see it. Wouldn't mind?! Of course not!
He starts walking out of the room like this is a normal thing to do in the middle of a lecture, and we all jump up and follow him. What else are we going to do at a moment like that? Very calmly he walks outside, across the courtyard and points out the wall of the school. That's bedrock, he says, the bedrock that the Hasmoneans carved into a tower of their wall. Suddenly I realize that the wall I've been walking by every day for two weeks on my way into the main building is part of a roughly 2,200 year old tower. The original. Then points out where under our basketball hoop the stones from the original tower were put into the new building.
As if it's nothing, he states that we might want to go see where the rest of the tower goes. So he walks up the stairs inside the building, stopping to point out where you can see the bedrock carved as the southern wall in the stairwell. He keeps going, right into the office of the director of the school (Dr. Wright) and stands there showing us the bedrock and where it has been carved to look like tiling stones.
Going back downstairs, he proceeds to take us on a line through the school, going from section to section showing us how the old wall literally runs right through our school. Apparently it also goes back into the cemetery that is attached as well. Another original tower is back there, along with some ritual baths (we didn't have time to go see it today, but I plan to very soon). He also took us right outside the school and showed us how the wall ran out of the school and kept going into the Greek Orthodox seminary next door.
Finished with his little object lesson for the day, he calmly walks back into the classroom, looks back down at his notes, and finishes his lecture in the remaining 5 minutes of class. Meanwhile I'm sitting there thinking, what?! I'm living in a building built upon and incorporating a 2,2oo year old wall?! Sweet! Every time I go in and out of the building with my room and the dining hall, I'm passing the guard tower of this wall. I'm sitting on and touching and living in stones that pre-date Christ! Needless to say, this place continues to blow my mind.
So I know this probably isn't nearly as cool to read about as it was to experience, but I felt need to share, so here it is. Hope you enjoyed it!
This morning, as every Friday morning, I went to Archaeology of Jerusalem at 8am, a bit tired and wondering again whatever possessed me to think that taking a class from 8-11am at the end of a week would be a good idea. I think I just got my answer. First, as I've said before, my professor is one of the leading archaeologists in Jerusalem. He's very well known, and it's been said of him that he knows personally every cave in and around Jerusalem (and I don't doubt it). Just listening to him in class proves the man knows more at 60-something than I could ever hope to know in about 4 lifetimes. He just stands there and lectures, and I sit there thinking, I can't write fast enough to put down what he's just casually talking about. He brings notes, but only looks at them about once every 1/2 hour. It's mind boggling.
Today in class, come about 10:30 he's calmly lecturing about and old wall from the Hasmonean dynasty that has been found and excavated in several places. He gives us the framework for where it runs and talks about the importance of the discovery, just as he has with every other archaeological find that we've talked about for the last 2 1/2 hours. And then, with the same, even tone that he has been using for the entire class, he suggests that maybe we wouldn't mind going to see it. Wouldn't mind?! Of course not!
He starts walking out of the room like this is a normal thing to do in the middle of a lecture, and we all jump up and follow him. What else are we going to do at a moment like that? Very calmly he walks outside, across the courtyard and points out the wall of the school. That's bedrock, he says, the bedrock that the Hasmoneans carved into a tower of their wall. Suddenly I realize that the wall I've been walking by every day for two weeks on my way into the main building is part of a roughly 2,200 year old tower. The original. Then points out where under our basketball hoop the stones from the original tower were put into the new building.
As if it's nothing, he states that we might want to go see where the rest of the tower goes. So he walks up the stairs inside the building, stopping to point out where you can see the bedrock carved as the southern wall in the stairwell. He keeps going, right into the office of the director of the school (Dr. Wright) and stands there showing us the bedrock and where it has been carved to look like tiling stones.
Going back downstairs, he proceeds to take us on a line through the school, going from section to section showing us how the old wall literally runs right through our school. Apparently it also goes back into the cemetery that is attached as well. Another original tower is back there, along with some ritual baths (we didn't have time to go see it today, but I plan to very soon). He also took us right outside the school and showed us how the wall ran out of the school and kept going into the Greek Orthodox seminary next door.
Finished with his little object lesson for the day, he calmly walks back into the classroom, looks back down at his notes, and finishes his lecture in the remaining 5 minutes of class. Meanwhile I'm sitting there thinking, what?! I'm living in a building built upon and incorporating a 2,2oo year old wall?! Sweet! Every time I go in and out of the building with my room and the dining hall, I'm passing the guard tower of this wall. I'm sitting on and touching and living in stones that pre-date Christ! Needless to say, this place continues to blow my mind.
So I know this probably isn't nearly as cool to read about as it was to experience, but I felt need to share, so here it is. Hope you enjoyed it!
Pictures from top to bottom:
- outside wall, just beyond the gate; the bottom part under the arch is bedrock which was carved into a wall of the tower
- inside the building, the first stairwell; directly in front, under the railing is more carved bedrock, remains of the southern wall of the tower
- looking from the stairwell back at the entrance to the building; on the right is more carved bedrock, with the remains of stairs going up to the top of the tower (you can see them way in the upper left-hand corner of the bedrock wall)
- outside wall, under the basketball hoop; the lowest two rows of stones are stones that fell down from the original Hasmonean dynasty wall and were reused in the building of the wall of the school
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