Sunday the 12th in the City of David & old Jerusalem

The dig-sponsored tour was cancelled, but BJ arranged for Marian to be tour guide for us -- the Sinai Seven. We started our day early at the City of David, conceived over two thousand years ago to be a capital to unite all Jews. Excavation still goes on continually, but it is home to many people of various faiths. At that time it was on the border of the lands of Judah and Benjamin, divided by parallel hills and the Kidron Valley. To be a city, some-times at war, water was imperative and it had to be safe to obtain. Here I am in the conduit below the city of David. We made our way through ancient water tunnels and peered down steep shafts searching for the necessary water. The rainwater-fed pool (discovered accidentally in 1995) was inside the original city walls and the narrow passageways were used by women to fetch buckets of fresh water. At this spring Solomon - son of David & Bathsheba was anointed king.

From atop the City of David one can see Mt Moriah- the scene of Abraham's intended sacrifice and the Arab town across the valley. You can see the modern city of Jerusalem, of which the City of David is a part. It seems everyone knows Marian, our guide, and we stopped at an excavation area where Ismail, the assistant director of the project showed us many ancient coins from the Iron Age to the Byzantines.

From there we wandered into the old part of Jerusalem, through the Jewish, Muslim and Armenian quarters. The narrow streets with shops and merchandise everywhere is a visual montage of color -- plumbing supplies next to silks and spices. We stopped to eat at a Falafel restaurant in the Jewish quarter. After lunch we visited a Byzantine processional road, which is now one level below the current street, the shopping area of the Cardo, the Muslim market. We finished our day with a view of the Western Wall.