benjamin beit shean

benjamin beit shean
Originally uploaded by nostalgist

We're back from a week up North, split between a zimmer (cottage) in Amirim and our friends place in Pardes Chana. I took about a zillion pictures and instead of posting them all at once I think I'll do so over the next few days. The drive out from Jerusalem is strange and spectacular-we left the Jerusalem hills and entered into dead sea desert, bleached and barren, with occasional Beduin encampments along the side of the road. We first stopped at Beit Shean which was a canaanite/ Israelite / egyptian/ Greek/ Roman/ Byzantine/ Muslim city until an earthquake destroyed it in 749 CE. I kept thinking of Shelley's Ozymandius. The site has been under excavation for about a hundred years. The boys liked jumping on the fallen pillars - there is a vast pillar graveyard - and we found the top of a pottery flask but we left it there.