Bayt 'Itab National Park

There are many ways to experience the world around you.  For some, that could mean visiting the museums and churches of eastern Europe.  For others, it may involve haggling with vendors and taking a risk on street food in Latin America.  You could go on an African safari or enjoy the Russian ballet.

For our friends Josh and Irene, all of the above is fine...but they would prefer to find a big splotch of green on the map and then proceed to walk from one end of it to the other. They arrived in Jerusalem a week or two after us, and as near as I can tell, we have yet to do one non-work-related function with them that didn't involve sand getting in my shoes.  I approve of this, as it often results in my seeing something I may otherwise have never given a passing thought to.

On Sunday, August 10th we joined them for a hike along the Wadi Me'Ara Trail in the Wadi Dolev Nature Reserve.  The trail, located 18km south southwest of Jerusalem, begins with a series of orchard trees that eventually give way to low vegetation.  The canyon is home to natural woodland species and wildflowers.  A sign at the trail's beginning advised that foxes, jackals, gazelles, porcupines, hyenas, and rodents make their homes there, as well as various kinds of amphibians, songbirds, and raptors.

Now, even assuming that "raptors" referred birds and not dinosaurs, I still had no desire to run into 56% of the critters listed.  Happy to report that we encountered none of the above.

The trail's main attractions would have to be En Khod and the ruins of Bayt 'Itab, which have been turned into a national park (Bayt 'Itab National Park, for those that missed this post's title).

Water for the residents of the surrounding villages (from the Byzantine, Crusader, and Ottoman periods, as evidenced by surrounding ruins) was provided by En Khod, which is Arabic for "the spring of the watering trough."

The spring has a 40 meter long tunnel with three vertical shafts.  Water collects in a constructed reservoir room and is then channeled toward a pool and into the trough from which flocks would drink.

Orchard trees surround the spring, among them fig, lemon, and almond.  Mediterranean species are also found here, including Kermes oak, carob, and terebinth.  The land in the spring's immediate vicinity is so fertile that lush tree-sized grape vines thrive haphazardly on their own, a far cry from the small, strategically placed vines found in nearby winery orchards  The spring also attracts all of the various wild animals mentioned earlier.

By contrast, nearby Bayt 'Itab sits abandoned in a landscape so arid you can hardly conceive of its close proximity to the spring.

Bayt 'Itab was a Palestinian village located just outside of Jerusalem and is believed to have been inhabited since biblical times.  A tunnel that led from the village to the spring is associated with the story of Samson, as it is speculated that this is the site of the Rock of Etam, where angry Samson took refuge after his wedding...didn't go quite according to plan.

Up until the end of the British Mandate, approximately 600 Muslim families lived in stone houses and cultivated grains, fruit trees, and olive groves.  Some bred livestock.   The village was depopulated and demolished following Operation HaHar in October 1948, which saw Israeli forces fighting to extend the Jerusalem Corridor to the south.

The village's displaced inhabitants fled to Bethlehem, Hebron, and the Dheisheh Refugee Camp in the West Bank.

In 1950, an Israeli settlement, Nes Harim, was established to the north of Bayt 'Itab, on an adjacent peak.  Like Baty 'Itab before it, the settlement's population hovers around 600.

The Israel Nature and Parks Authority restored the area around the spring in 2005.

The population of the Dheisheh Refugee Camp had grown from 3,400 in 1949 to 9,399 by 2006.

Rosh Hanikra

On July 4th, we traded fireworks for ocean views and visited Rosh Hanikra with our friend Jeremy.

Located along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea in the Western Galile, Rosh Hanikra is a national park notable for its white chalk cliff face and beautiful, natural, grottos.

The steepest cable car ride in the world (so they claim) awaits you at the entrance to this seaside destination near the Israel/Lebanon border.  The car descends from a height of 70 meters above sea level at an angle of 60 degrees.  The ride takes approximately two minutes in either direction and affords breathtaking aerial views of the sea and cliffside that visitors will soon see up close and personal.

Upon exiting the cable car, you are invited to view a short film that tells the tale of ancient Rosh Hanikra.

Legend speaks of a young Israeli woman from Akko that was betrothed involuntarily to a wealthy old man from Lebanon.  Distraught over her lot in life, the young woman is said to have leapt from her horse into the Mediterranean Sea as her father escorted her on the journey to meet her future husband.  The ghost story claims that her sad song can be heard deep within the grottoes to this very day, worn deep into the cliff by the crashing waves.

This probably didn't happen.  Or maybe it did.  All I can say is that I didn't hear any ghost whisperings, and arranged marriages continue to this day, making this an interesting, yet failed, cautionary tale.

The grottoes are arguably the main attraction here.  They formed hundreds, if not thousands, of years ago when a series of earthquakes ripped holes into the bedrock.  Rainwater trickled into these rifts, dissolving the rock and forming tunnels and caves that even now continue to expand due to the intensity of the waves crashing into the ageless rock.

The grottoes aren't the only point of interest, however.

The British Train Tunnel has quite a storied past.  It is a carryover from the days of World War II, during the British Mandate in Palestine.  During the war, a need arose for a land continuum between the Middle East and Europe.  The British, with the help of thousands of laborers from the Australian, New Zealand, South African and local workforce, laid down the track for a rail line between Haifa, Beirut, and Tripoli.

Within the span of just one year the men bore 200 meters of tunnel into the rock of Rosh Hanikra, suspended 15 bridges along the route, and built supporting walls to fend off the sea waves.

The tracks that passed through these tunnels served the British for their military needs between 1943 and 1948.  In 1944, this rail system was used to bring Jewish concentration camp refugees to Israel.

During the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, the western Galilee was cut off from the rest of the country.  The bridge was blown up in March 1948 to prevent the passage of Lebanese weapons and soldiers into the region.  Though the train no longer runs through the area, the tunnel and sections of track remain as evidence of Rosh Hanikra's important role in the history of this region.


Clocking in at just over two hours commuting time from Jerusalem, Rosh Hanikra makes for a beautiful change of scenery and a worthy option as far as day trips go.

To ensure a lovely day, please verify that your travel companions would sooner spend time with you than jump off a cliff. 

Three Guys, Three Days, Three National Parks

Beit Guvrin-Maresha was but the first of four Israeli national parks that we would explore with our friend Naser (well, to date, anyway).  April saw us visiting the other three.  As I'm trying desperately to clear out my blog backlog (backblog?), I'll just knock the rest of them out here in one go.

Beit She'an National Park is located in the northern Jordan Valley.  It was first settled in the fifth century BC on a mound south of the Harod Stream.  For generations, until the Middle Ages, the site was built and rebuilt, causing the layers to grew from a hill into an impressive tel (a prehistoric settlement mound characteristic of the flatter lands of the eastern Mediterranean).  The richest finds from the tel date to the 15th-12th century BCE, when Egypt ruled these lands.  The Egyptians made Beit She'an the center of their rule over Canaan and the Bible mentioned that the Tribes of Israel were unable to capture the city up to the time of King David.  It was here that King Saul and his sons were famously beheaded, their bodies displayed on the city walls following the battle of Gilboa.

From the Hellenistic period up to the Byzantine era, the tel was part of the cosmopolitan Roman city of Scythopolis.  Its striking height imparted special status upon the town, which over the centuries became a central place of worship for pagans and Christians alike.  

Muslims settled the city in the 7th century, but that era was short-lived, as an earthquake razed the city in the year 749.  

The expansive park features many points of interest, mainly from the Roman and Canaanite eras.  

The theatre, containing about 7,000 seats, is the best preserved ancient theatre to be discovered in Israel.  It was built toward the end of the second century CE on the remains of a previous first century theatre.  Today's visitors have a view of the biblical mound and the city streets, but in ancient times walls shielded visitors from such distractions.  Performances were held in the daytime and the seats faced north so spectators had their backs to the sun.  Pantomimes and imitations were the genre of choice, though the occasional athletic competition or acrobatic spectacle found its way to the stage.  

Like other Roman-Byzantine cities, Beit She'an had numerous bathhouses.  Built in the 4th century CE, this 8,500 square meter bathhouse was in use for 200 years, undergoing periodic renovations and alterations.  The compound comprised a number of bathing halls, massage rooms, and public latrines.  Some of the facilities faced an open courtyard with paved mosaic floors.

Palladius Street was one of the more elegant boulevards in Byzantine Beit She'an.  The sidewalks were roofed and paved with mosaics.  The street was named by excavators after a fourth century governors who is mentioned in an inscription found in one of the mosaic pavements.  Along the way you will find the remnants of shops, each with their own beautiful mosaic floor.

The Agora was a Byzantine concourse surrounded by porticoes built in the city center to serve as a hub of commerce and activity.  It became a major center for pottery production during the Umayyad dynasty.

The below piles of rubble may look the same to you or me, but they tell two very different stories.  To the left, we have basalt boulders marking the only remnants of an Israelite fortress dating back to the time of King David and King Solomon.  It was destroyed in a raging fire during the military campaign of Shishak, king of Egypt, five years after the death of King Solomon.  To the right we have the final reminder of an old Canaanite temple.  Five temples were erected on the summit of the tel, one on top of the other, from the 15th to 12th century BCE.  Inside and around the temples were found the remains of altars, ditches, and other structures which served in cultic rituals performed here. 

The day was filled with much more walking and photography, but the discovery of a second bathhouse/public latrine provided my favorite photo ever.

And, since nothing can follow that, we shall move on to another day, and another park.

Nimrod Fortress National Park is, simply, an awe-inspiring sight to behold.  Located on the slopes of Mount Hermon at an altitude of 815 meters above sea level, every corner of the fortress offers a lovely panoramic view of the surrounding valleys.  Nimrod Fortress (aka Qala'at Subeiba) was built in 1220 by Al-Maliq al-'Aziz 'Othman, the governor of Banias, to block passage to the army of Friedrich II, who threatened to march from Akko to Damascus.  

The fortress was expanded and renovated by the Mameluke Sultan, Baybars, during the the 13th century.

The below inscription commemorates and glorifies this reconstruction.  Originally set at the top of the Tower Gate, it was shattered during an earthquake which devastated the fortress.  Most of the fragments were recently sorted and are now displayed along a pathway beside the tower. 

The largest Crusader fortress in all of Israel, Nimrod spans some 420 meters in length and 150 meters in width.  The national park, containing the fortress and the forested mountain on which it rests, covers 49 acres.

The fortress was named after Nimrod, a great hunter-warrior from early Biblical times who was rumored to have built his own castle on the mountaintop.  According to tradition,  Nimrod could sit on the summit and reach out his hand to take water from the Banias Stream below.

We tried to reach the water, and failed.  It was incredibly hot outside, so we found a concession stand and, rehydrated, headed for home.

Tel Hazor National Park is (so far) the only one of this trio of parks to have obtained status as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.  The biblical tels of Hazor, Megiddo and Beer Sheba were inscribed as World Heritage Sites in 2005, and represent 200 biblical tels in Israel, all of which were once flourishing cities.  These cities were established alongside ancient commercial roads and near prosperous agricultural areas.  Archaeological finds attest to urban planning, including gates, walls, temples, palaces, storerooms, stables, and water systems.  These cities existed during the Canaanite and Israelite periods, from the third to first millennia BCE.  

The Meeting Point of the Upper and Lower Cities

Hazor was the largest city in the country during the Caananite period.  It maintained commercial ties with cities in Babylon and Syria, and imported large quantities of tin for the bronze industry.  Approximately 15,000 people inhabited an upper and lower city covering some 200 acres of land.  Hazor was destroyed in a huge fire in the 13th century BCE, after which the lower city was abandoned forever. 

Above are the modest remains of the Palace of the Canaanite Kings of Hazor. The floor of the throne room was originally made of wood. Large quantities of wood were also incorporated into the walls and roof of the building, contributing to the conflagration that destroyed the city.  This particular palace served more of a ceremonial purpose.  The administrative palace is being sought out elsewherein the dig.  

During the Israelite period, a much smaller Hazor (approximately 8.5 acres in size) housed a population of some 1,000 to 1,500 people in the upper city.  Hazor was again destroyed in 732 BCE, this time by Tiglath-pileser III of Assyria's military campaign.  Its residence were exiled along with the inhabitants of the entire Galilee (2 Kings 15:29). 

The mid-1950s excavation of the site was the most important dig undertaken by Israel in its early years of statehood.  To date it is the largest archaeological site in northern Israel…though it certainly didn't feel like it. 

Hazor’s impressive water system, thought to have been built during King Ahab’s reign (9th century BCE), was designed to supply the inhabitants of the city with water in times of siege.  A vertical shaft was dug through the earlier occupation layers, at the bottom of which a sloping tunnel was dug, reaching ground-water at a depth of approximately 40 meters.  These stairs teased the possibility of visiting the cistern, but alas it was closed for renovation.  As the park was empty and the gate was short, I flirted with the notion of hopping the fence and exploring anyway, but TJ shot me a disapproving glance that ruined all the fun. 

The locked gate really does best summarize this site.  There wasn't a whole lot to see.  The city having been destroyed by fire certainly contributes to that, but lots of ancient cities have been devastated by fire and still sport an interesting exhibit or two.  Maybe I've been spoiled by all of the archaeological sites I've had access for recently, such as the first two I discussed today…or maybe there's really just nothing here.  I wouldn't recommend it for the temporary tourist, but anybody living here that collects national parks or UNESCO sites should give it a quick drive-by.