In 1947, local Bedouins found the first cache of what came to be known as the Dead Sea Scrolls in a Judean Desert cave. Eventually, eleven caves would yield pieces of some 800 ancient manuscripts, the last found in 1956. It’s generally accepted that the scrolls were collected by the Essenes, or a similar Jewish sect, which had a community living at Qumran, in the shadow of the caves.
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This 1:50 scale model depicts the capital city of our mystery country as it was 2,000 years ago. In the 1960s, archaeologists, historians and architects used ancient texts and archaeological records to recreate a mini version of the city as it may have looked just prior to its destruction by the Romans in 70CE. In the foreground is the oldest part of the city, founded by David, the country’s 2nd king. The model is on display at the national museum.
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floor mosaic of Tyche, patron goddess of Scythopolis (Beit She’an)
About seventeen miles south of the Sea of Galilee is one of the world’s most extensively excavated Greco-Roman sites – Beit She’an (aka Scythopolis). Blessed with fertile land and abundant water, this strategic location at the convergence of the Jordan and Jezreel Valleys has been occupied at least since the 5th millennium BCE and holds remains from Canaanites, Egyptians, Philistines, Israelites, Greeks, Romans and Byzantines in 18 distinct layers. At its peak, as the main Roman Decapolis city, Beit She’an had a population of 40,000. Continue reading
In the early 1960s the artist Marc Chagall did a series of 12 stained glass windows for the synagogue at Hadassah Medical Center. The 12 sons of Jacob were each represented by a gem stone and other symbols according to the blessings of Jacob and Moses. Chagall’s windows are brilliant expressions of these foundations of our mystery country.
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This beautiful mosaic is from the floor of the so-called Villa of Dionysus among the ruins of Tzipori (aka Sepphoris). Tizpori was a wealthy, cosmopolitan center of trade in the northern region of our mystery country. The local Roman client king Herod Antipas invested heavily in the city in the early decades of the Common Era. The population of prosperous, Hellenized Jews refused to participate in revolts against Roman occupation, thereby avoiding the destruction suffered by many other Jewish cities and towns. The city attracted Jewish scholars from devastated towns and became a center of Jewish study. Its most notable resident was the Rabbi Yehuda Hanasi, the editor of the Mishna, a collection of commentaries on the Torah and the 2nd most important book in Judaism after the Torah. Remains at the site include a Roman theater, early Christian churches, a Crusader fort and a huge collection of 3rd-6th-century mosaics.
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The architecture around Bialik Square is a small representation of thousands of Bauhaus buildings built in the 1920s and 30s in the largest and first modern city of our mystery country. Because of the large collection of Bauhaus buildings, many of which were whitewashed to keep them cooler in the Mediterranean heat, this original area of the city is known as the White City and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Bialik Square is named for the national poet, Chaim Nachman Bialik, whose home, now a museum, is just off the square, on a street which also carries his name. The white building pictured is the recently restored former Town Hall, now a museum and civic center.
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There’s copper in them thar hills! Or, there was. The formations pictured above are popularly known as King Solomons’ Pillars and they are located in the Timna Valley in the far south of our mystery country. The area was heavily mined for copper for thousands of years, from the 5th millennium BCE to the 7th century CE. Some 10,000 mines have been discovered. Today, the area is a national park.
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vineyards in the Upper Galilee
Jews, in general, have never been big drinkers, but they have been making wine for use in ritual for thousands of years. Most of that wine was pretty awful, maybe purposely so, to discourage recreational imbibing. If you’ve ever tasted Manischewitz wine, you know what I mean. Continue reading
This site is located on the northern coast of our mystery country. It’s one of the world’s oldest continuously inhabited places. It changed hands as a major port from Phoenicians to Greeks to Romans to various Muslim dynasties to Crusaders to Ottomans, and for a time, was one of the two most populous cities in the country. Today, the 12-century fortress of the Knights Hospitaller, known as the Knights’ Halls, is a popular attraction. The founder of the Baha’i faith spent the last years of his life here and his shrine is the most important place of pilgrimage for the Baha’i faithful. The city is also full of lovely old mosques, churches and synagogues.
Can you name that country? What about the site?
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All the clues in this post refer to one Ya’lla Tours destination: Bahrain, Cuba, Egypt, Greece, Israel, Jordan, Morocco, Oman, Turkey, or United Arab Emirates (Abu Dhabi and Dubai).
We’ll show you images of popular tourist sites in our mystery country, along with descriptions of those sites. Continue reading
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