As it so happened, I didn't have any classes this morning. In fact, my first class for the day was at 3:00. So we decided to take advantage of the free time to go to Tel Megiddo, a national park that we had not been to before. When we had visited Tel Khatzor, we had read that these two together with another one constitute the 3 most important archeological sites in Israel. And Tel Megiddo certainly lives up to that.
Nearly 30 different cities were built on this site, ranging from about 4000 BCE (before the common era) to 400 BCE. It's strategically located along the main route between Egypt and Mesopotamia, and from it one can see the entire Jezreel Valley. It was apparently also considered a holy site for several millenia, since many temples were found there.
Perhaps the most dramatically interesting thing there, though, was the water works, which is similar in concept and design to that at Tel Khatzor and was probably built in roughly the same era (probably at around the time of King Ahab, of the northern kingdom of Israel). Both are solutions to a serious problem for a sizable city: how can the people be supplied with vital water when the city is under siege? In both cases, vertical shafts were cut deep down and connected to horizontal or sloping tunnels that led to hidden springs outside the city walls. In this way, water could be brought into the city without opening the gates and letting enemies in. But the engineering involved in creating these was quite phenomenal. They had no modern digging or blasting equipment, and the tunnels go through rock and are tall enough for me to walk through without stooping! And they are deep in the ground: 183 steps down (I'm trusting the brochure and the signs on this one; I lost count). Quite impressive!
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