Assignment # 2 - Ir David
I am looking forward to reading your reflections on today's exciting and informative experience. Please feel free to see the links on the side bar for further information. You are asked to reflect on your experience in Area G and Hezekiah's tunnel. Be sure not to just tell me what we did there - I was there with you! Think about the significance of the experiences, the feelings you thought about, and how they impact what you are leaning about the city of Jerusalem.
Reminder to keep up on your readings and not to miss your deadlines. Shana Tovah!
Reminder to keep up on your readings and not to miss your deadlines. Shana Tovah!
posted by Marc Rosenberg at 6:33 PM
1 Comments:
One disadvantage to having been in Jerusalem and doing touristy-historical day trips is that some sites lose their significance the second time around. When I walked around the historical sites in the City of David only twelve weeks ago, I thought it was exciting to be there then but even at that time I was already thinking ahead because I was sure I would visit the same site when I came on Year Course. Naturally I proved correct. But I was wrong about the site losing its significance on my second visit.
In twelve weeks there has been a lot of archæological advance at the entrance of the City of David. In June, the entire section immediately to the right of the grated walk-over section was entirely undisturbed. Now workers have cleared away thousands of bucket of soil from this point of slight depression. They work to uncover the history behind the City of David in order to further establish Jewish claims of legitimacy to the land around Jerusalem and especially to the walled Old City itself. If, as some scholars argue, Jerusalem's importance was political before it was ever religious, then uncovering evidence about the earliest inhabitants of the city can prove to those who deny the Jewish claim to the land that there was a Jewish presence in Jerusalem. Even the discovery of a stone inscribed with the name of King David himself should not end the discussion over control of the city but it would certainly be a major blow to certain oppositive factions' claims.
Even within the entrace to Hezekiah's Tunnel (the humorous Hebrew name for which is related to the word for "female") there have been very recent changes. The entrance is now approximately twenty meters behind where it was only twelve weeks ago, meaning that either more of the tunnel has been uncovered or an entire rear chaber of the building has been more fully explored. In either case, it is clear that rapipd progress is being made in doing archæological work. One hopes that the feverish pace does not signify that the archæological community thinks Israel is going to turn over any part of their working space, but this thought is always at the back of one's mind at digs all over this country.
What is special about Hezekiah's Tunnel--and I'll not discuss the history--is that one has the option of experiencing the walk exactly the same way as the workers did 2700 years ago. Flashlights have been both invented and allowed in the tunnel, but when one is lucky enough to be the last member of the group to walk through the tunnel, one has the option of not using his flashlight. This experience is the true way to walk the 530 meters of the water tunnel. Given the proper rhythmic gifts, one can even beat out the sounds of the drums of the invading army--only to remember that the invading army never succeeded in infiltrating Jerusalem precisely because of the tunnel. And this realization is the entire purpose of visiting sites like Hezekiah's Tunnel. So many places in Israel have an intense historical connection and one must feel the water and the slime and the hard rock overhead in order to feel this history.
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