All Students Enjoy Getting Letters

This field trip was to the Shephelah, which is the landland region between Israel's mountains and plains. The Shephelah had five valleys:  Aijalon, Sorek, Elah, Guvrin, and Lachish.  If you want help remembering them in order, just remember "All students enjoy getting mail"  (hint, hint).  It rained that day and it was muddy, but as you can see, the rain makes things quite lush and green.  Temporarily.  This view overlooks the plains where David fought Goliath.  Later in the day we actually practiced using slings but it was too wet for taking pictures.

 

This is the what remains of the city Lachish (la-keesh).  This place is famous because archaeologists found a seige ramp and some letters written on pot shards.  The letters talk about the defeat of Beth Shemesh at the hands of the Israelites.

 

The last stop was Maresha in Beit Guvrin National Park. This city was built underground into limestone, which is soft and easy to carve.  Here we see dove cotes.  Doves were used for food and sacrifices.

 

The caves where the people lived were built like a maze.  Deep cisterns collected water in the wet season and had to last the whole year.

Here you can see a couple levels down.

 

This is the cave of tombs.  The walls are nicely painted and there are plenty of alcoves for photo ops.