City of David, W12

Today we took our students to "The City of David," which is the oldest part of Jerusalem.  Here is the day's highlights video montage:

I have written about it and described it in some detail here and here. There are also some pictures of its most famous attraction, Hezekiah's Tunnel, in the entry in which I took my niece around several sites right before Christmas.

Here are some pictures of today's visit to these sites:

Along the walk to the City of David, we stopped at the corner of the Temple Mount that may well be "the pinnacle of the temple" from which Satan tempted Jesus to throw himself down.  Here my class stands below that point.

After seeing a funky 3-D movies describing the history of the City of David, we went up to an overlook point where we could see the geography that defines Jerusalem.

Our group with the Al Aqsa Mosque (at the south end of the Haram / Temple Mount) in the background

City of David cat . . . this is another one of those ubiquitous cats for you Catie Legro

This time with the southern end of the Mount of Olives and the Arab village of Silwan in the background

Silwan, the Kidron Valley, and the Hinnom Valley beyond

The Kidron Valley with the Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives

Next we walked through "Area G," the portion of the archaeological site where the possible palace of David and later noble and administrative buildings were located.

"The stone structure" or stepped retaining wall that may have supported the Davidic palace

Jared teaching

Remains of a tower

We stopped briefly at some tombs, that at one point were identified as possibly being those of David and Solomon, though that identification is uncertain.

In front of the possible Davidic Tombs

The highlight for most of the students, of course, was going through the famous tunnel that Hezekiah built to bring the water of the Gihon Spring safely within the walls of Jerusalem.

Letty demonstrates how deep the water in the tunnel was going to be

Vladi and I brought up the rear of the line of students that snaked through the tunnel

Hezekiah's Tunnel currently opens into a Byzantine reservoir identified as "the Pool of Siloam."  The actual, Second Temple period Pool of Siloam, where the man born blind was healed in John 9, was discovered fairly recently.

The group in the Byzantine Pool of Siloam after exiting Hezekiah's Tunnel

A Herodian Street where Jesus and the disciples would well have walked