Nothing can stop me - I’m all the way up!

Old Jerusalem & City of David, continued . . . 

Lunch - so AdaMa will know that we are eating well!
We lost one of our brothers on the trek from the Jewish Quarter to the Christian Quarter for lunch (not map at beginning of last post for perspective).  Fortunately, his wife (who didn’t realize he was missing until we got to the lunch spot) had cellular service and was able to let him know where we were.  Turns out he was reading an email and didn’t notice when the group left.  Who’s reading email when we are in the middle of re-living history? 🤦🏾‍♀️

Chicken Swarma with all the fixings!

Christian Quarter - Church of Holy Sepulchre
This is the oldest church in the land, built in the year 335.  It is believed to be the location of Jesus’ death and tomb.  Today, several denominations share property rights over parts of the church.  However, they don’t share very well.  This picture shows a ladder placed by one denomination in a section owned by another - this small action sparked a war between the two groups.  And it appears that the legal decree Status Quo was instituted to require agreement among all parties.

As a result of the Status Quo, a ladder placed before 1757 remains in place to this day.

City of David
We explored the ruins of David’s former palace, which was evident because of its thick walls, highest point in the city and signature columns.  The retaining wall outside of the palace has been holding it up since the 10th century BCE (wow).  Of course, it has been reinforced since its excavation with cement - but there is still plenty of evidence of amazing design.

And since the high official in his army would have lived close by (like Uriah), the ruins for nearby homes also tell of their luxurious lifestyles.  These homes had multiple rooms with courtyards and even had indoor plumbing - we found a toilet!  So why was Bath-Sheba bathing out on the rooftop again?

Aren’t you glad someone invented toilet seats?

Hezekiah’s Tunnel
This was indeed the highlight of the day for me.  In fact, I had been anticipating this part of the tour from the moment we got the itinerary.  I bought special wet shoes and headlamps - we were ready for opportunity to walk back in time some 3,000 years ago.

Hezekiah redirected the waters of the Gihon Spring to the Pool of Siloam to protect it from the Assyrian army (2 Chronicles 32:2-4).  Experts say that the tunnel is one of the great engineering feats of antiquity.  There was one team of workers digging from the south and another team working from the north chipping away through bedrock with hand tools for likely 6-8 months!

Hezekiah’s tunnel: 1,749 feet long, with some sections as high as 6 ft tall

Stacy was carrying a backpack and it kept scrapping against the side walls.  At one point, I thought he was going to have to crawl because the ceiling got so low.  And with the frequent curves in the tunnel, it is mind-boggling to try to understand how these two work teams were able to meet in the middle.  Might be a new team building exercise I can use on the job (lol).

I really would go anywhere with him! Notice the watermark on his shorts. We got soaked! 💦 😃

We made it to the end - Pool of Siloam with steps continues on other side of that brick wall straight ahead!