Naples

It seems like so long ago when we visited Naples, but I think it was only three days ago. Naples is not far from Pompeii and so we took a train to get there. It is a crowded city and it has a reputation for being a place where you can get a purse stolen easily, so you have to be careful. Naples is also not known particularly as an archaeological site, so it was very interesting to see what we saw. Rabin Taylor and Joe Alceres took us around Naples. They have been working on a book about archaeological finds in Naples. Joe is an expert in Medieval times and Rabin does Greek and Roman Naples.

When I was young my family had a cabin near a river. We would go there on vacation and sometimes I would explore the area and take walks through the woods. One time I found a discarded stove and some other stuff and I was intrigued. Where did these things come from? I imagine that something similar might happen for a child in Naples. You see, the modern city was built on top of the ancient city and so there are layers and layers of different remains. When you walk in the streets in most places Naples looks like a busy city with narrow streets, but UNDER the city there is a lot of really interesting history that archaeologists are just beginning to find. In fact in one place the archaeologists had to buy apartment buildings in order to dig and then they even found things under buildings and so they bought basements and first floors from some buildings! Imagine a kid in Naples going to the basement and wondering about something there. Would you ask questions until you figured out what something was? Here is a question that the archaeologists have not answered yet. They found 5 little rooms underground and there were these structures in each room. They sort of look like couches, but they are slanted. What do you think they are? They had to dig out a lot of fill dirt in order to find these rooms. What happens is that when something is not being used and people want to build something new they cover it over with fill dirt and then build on top of it. Under these buildings they found water channels and areas that they could identify as businesses. They also found a theater! At first there were plans to knock down the modern buildings in this whole area and reveal the whole theater, but they realized that it is important to save evidence from all of the different layers of things that happened in history, so they are trying to work carefully and keep evidence from the different centuries that they find.

Another example is found under this church. It looks like a big modern cathedral now, but it was built on top of an ancient temple. Some of the columns of the temple were reused in the cathedral. There are actually three different churches that you can access from this one church. When you go into it you are in the main cathedral. Then you come to the earlier church (which I do not have a picture of) and finally you can get to a baptismal area from the fourth century AD. It has a mosiac ceiling with biblical scenes shown. This is a picture of the wedding where Jesus turned the water into wine. Archaeologists have traced back even further and found evidence of this temple from the first century AD. Nearby they also found evidence of this market place. For hundreds of years people have been using the same foundations to construct new things on top of the old, so there are layers upon layers of information. In Naples there are over 600 miles of caves underground that were used for various things. We did not go into these caves, but I left Naples surprised with how much there was to discover. I am guessing that even most Napolean children have no idea of what is under their city!

People are still very religious in Naples. This is an example of a modern niche that we saw just along the street. People have these shrines outside their houses. I think this is one with burning martyrs.

Wrapping Up Israel Two

I just arrived in Italy last night and unfortunately I do not have Internet at the apartment where I am staying... so I am writing this from an Internet Cafe near the Termini Train Station.
There are 9 people who have voted for the name. TOMORROW IS THE FINAL DAY!

The people in Bethlehem are very friendly. Everywhere we went people offered us Arabic coffee (a small cup of strong coffee with cardemon), tea or lemonade. Sometimes they gave us Sprite or Coke. One day when we were visiting the Wi’am office they first brought us coffee and then tea and after that lemonade. I guess it is good because it is very hot there and you should drink lots of liquids! On our last evening there we went out for a typical Palestinian Barbeque. We went to a restaurant where there were grills out in front and lots of chicken being grilled. We sat at a table and the waiter brought us lots of different small salads on plates (humus, tahini, eggplant salad (baba ganoush), chopped tomatoes and cucumber, and others that I don’t have names for. Then they brought a plate of the barbequed chicken to the table. There is always pita bread that you dip into all of the different salads. We had forks, but I think the traditional way to eat is to tear off a piece of pita to pick salad up a bit and eat it. The chicken was delicious.

The day ended with a surprise. Last week both The Professor and I had our birthdays (June 18 and 19) and somehow they had heard about it and so they brought us a cheesecake decorated with our names and with candles. I don’t think this is the traditional Palestinian way to celebrate birthdays though! It was so nice of them. We also accompanied some Wi’am staff while they delivered groceries to people in need. They delivered toilet paper, sugar, salt, rice and olive oil to about 100 people in the last few days. The person who drove us around had an older car that was manual (you have to shift manually). When all four of us (the driver, Zoughbi, The Professor and myself) and the groceries were in the car it could not make it up some of those hills. Twice we had to get out and the professor and Zoughbi pushed the car.

One of the main memories I will have from visiting here is the roads. I was totally amazed at the way that people drive around the town. Many of the roads were so skinny I wouldn’t try to drive ONE car down them let alone two! Also Bethlehem is built on hills, so the roads are more like terraces that weave up and down and sometimes they are pretty steep. Sometimes you do a hairpin turn where you cannot see the oncoming traffic at all. Often there was two way traffic and parking where I would imagine only a one-way street. The people have developed a way of navigating these streets. They never seem to slow down and they don’t wait for other cars, but there seems to be some polite understanding about who gets to go next. I never saw an accident and I felt safe with the people who drove us around, but I wouldn’t want to give it a try!

2009 Odyssey

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I am preparing right now for a 5 week long trip to the Mediterranean this summer. I have an opportunity to travel with my husband to archaeological sites in Turkey, Israel, Italy and Greece. I hope to see many other things and meet people in all of these places. Below you will see a map showing the itinerary for the trip. I hope you will join and put your comments and questions onto the blog. The map is interactive. Zoom in and out and slide it to see the parts you are interested in.