Qumran Living Quarters

Where People Lived

Archaeological excavations at Qumran are revealing how the residents lived and worked. The place was occupied at three different times by three different groups.

Sorting them out is part of the fun. I would love to dig there.

Brother was it ever HOT!

The Cave At Cumran

The Cave at Cumran

In 1947 a goat wandered up the side of this cliff being chased by a Shepherd boy. The goat ran into the cave and the boy tossed a rock in to the cave to scare the goat out of it. He heard a clink and the sound of breaking pottery - The "Dead Sea Scrolls" had been discovered.

Today there is a trail up the side of that cliff but it is still a tough climb - It was awesome to clime up and go into the now empty cave.

The Cave Opening at Qumran

Entrance to THE cave at Qumran

My friend Carol - a preachers kid - and my self are in the opening of the cave where the first scrolls were found.

What an exciting day that was!

Interesting Jerusalem Baptistery

Unusual Episcopal Baptistery

While in Jerusalem I visited an Episcopal Cathedral and was surprised to find this baptistery near the entrance to the sanctuary. It has two sections one dry for the priest to stand in and the other wet for the person being baptised to be immersed in. 

The interesting thing is the the Episcopal church sprinkles and does not immerse. 

The priest on duty there told me that it was there to appease the Greek Orthodox. Go figure!

Rough Stone Work

Storage Building

Here we have an entrance to one of the storage building on Massada.

Notice the stone work was roughly done and then plastered over for a neater appearance. This was a common practice for many building in that time.

Stone was a popular building material because they had a lot of it and little else.

Ashkelon Archaeological Park

Ashkelon Archaeological Park

This is how Ashkelon Archealogical Park looks before archaeologist start digging. To look at it like this one would not think that under that dirt are layer upon layer of cities named Ashkelon.

The fenced area is where we were digging. What treasurers of knowledge lie under that dirt?

The park was divided into 100 grids with only a few grids being excavated to the bottom. Most of the park will be left untouched.

Massade From Above

Here is a picture looking down on Massada. 

You can see how easy it was to defend this fortress and why it took the Roman Army three years to capture it.