Israel Day 1

I was hoping to be able to do this while we were actually in Israel, but internet access was not what we'd hoped it would be.  I have hundreds of pictures, so I will post them by place.

The first place we visited was Har-Meggido, which is often mistranslated as Armegeddon.  Har means mountain, and I don't know if it was always a mountain or if it has just been built up so many times that it is now a mountain (and by mountain I mean hill).  Meggido was first built in 4000 B.C.  It was destroyed and rebuilt 22 times, the last time being in 400 A.D.  Here are some pictures of the ruined city.

This shot is looking out over the valley of Amegeddon.  It is a very fertile valley and has been a crossroads for thousands of years, and because of that it has been the scene of many wars.

This is a grain silo.  Instead of building them up, they dug huge pits and filled them with grain.  Being under ground kept the grain cool and prevented rotting.

This was the site of an ancient stable, and they have put a horse figure there to show where they were kept.

This is a trough in the stable.

All of these ancient cities have been built on top of previous cities because of their location near a water source.  This shaft and the tunnel below were excavated thousands of years ago so the people within the city could get to the spring even when the city was surrounded by enemies.  The spring was walled off and covered from the outside so that invading armies wouldn't have a water source.

This is the spring at the end of the tunnel.  More to come....