Galilee: Day 10

July 20

Western Galilee! The first place that we went was to Chorizin – one of the three cities in the ecclesiastical triangle. (These three cities were woe’d by Christ in the New Testament… an interesting thing is that most of the other cities in the New Testament have a current city still there today… except for those three. Just a little food for thought.)

While at Chorizin, we saw a first century house, which had beams. Sound familiar? They didn’t built houses with wood here. They still don’t. So the “beam” that is in your eye, would have been a big stone block. Megan will demonstrate.

We also saw the synagogue at Chorizin, and the “seat of Moses,” where the person with the authority to interpret scripture would have sat. This one was fake. But I did see the real one. It’s in the Israel museum. (That’s pretty much the answer to anything. “It’s not the real one. That one is in the Israel museum…” If I had a shekel for every time I heard that this semester… I could probably buy myself a olive wood nativity. And maybe a falafel. Yum.

dr. jones reporting for duty!

After Chorizin, we scooted on over to Sepphoris. This is a city that would have been a highly affluent area, and a big center of industry. When Christ was growing up, and working (either as a carpenter or a stonemason… whatever you decide to believe in), he most likely would have come here to look for work. That was a pretty neat thought.

wayna and me by a first-century manger!

sorry to break it to you... but mangers aren't made of wood. 

nothing is made of wood here...

the mosaic carpet in the synagogue

We saw a lot of mosaic carpets in Sepphoris too. It was the “in thing” to have mosaics for floors. I just couldn’t help but remembering tiling the kitchen back at home… and that was with 5x5 inch tiles. And that was annoying. I can’t imagine doing that with different colored tiles that are smaller than my fingernail! They were gorgeous though. No question about that.

Which leads us to our next stop! We got to see the “Mona Lisa of the Galilee” – a mosaic carpet that was in the dining room of a house. You could actually see that they had the outline of the triclinium table arrangement. The last supper most likely would have taken place in a dinner setting like this. The best part about this  floor was the Mona Lisa.

you would think that we would get bored of seeing water systems... never! just like we nevvvvvvvver get sick of seeing tells... :o)

oh swell! another tell! 

Today we only had 3 stops, but they were pretty spread out, and each one was pretty time consuming. Don’t get me wrong… after yesterday, time on the bus is a good thing. Our final stop was at Akko (or Acre… pronounced like acre. You don’t have to get excited and say anything like ah-cray or something crazy like that. Just acre.)

Acre is one of the best preserved crusader cities. Why? Someone wanted to build up the city, so they just filled in the old crusader buildings with dirt and built right on top of it. Which preserved it very well for archeologists today. I think that most archeologists wish all ancient people were this thoughtful. It would make digging stuff up a lot easier.

the best picture of the whole stop.

kerri, lizzie, me, becca, deidra, and niffer... it's pretty urgent.

We had one last firebon tonight – we even heard the legend of Falling Rock. It wasn't this exact one... but it was fairly similar. Only Dallin didn't just fall to the ground. He cannonballed onto the sand... ouch?