Nazareth Village

Earlier today I said goodbye to Alex, Sharon, David, and Mia. Alex was good enough to drop me off in Afula, where I caught a direct bus to Tiberias. I'm now staying at the Aviv Hotel.

Yesterday in Nazareth, however, I got the opportunity to do one of those things I'd come to the Holy Land to do: Nazareth Village.

Nazareth Village is an open-air living history museum, where volunteers have recreated the life of a first century Jewish village. Some of the buildings are reconstructions; others, however, are actual on-site archaeological finds. All of the items used by the volunteers are built on site from olive wood, and olive groves are actually harvested using two thousand year old techniques.

The tour takes you through the village, beginning with the animals. We got treated to donkeys and sheep, neither of which were particularly interested in us (the donkey, in particular, was hard at work). The trail led up to the reconstructed watchtower, and then to the wine press. This was an actual ancient wine press (perhaps not first century, but still ancient). We were also shown a village cistern, a far cry from the mammoth cisterns at Masada, Herodion, or Megiddo.

From there we were taken up the hill to the village proper, which perched above the terraced hills leading down into the grazing land. We got to see ancient Judean carpentry and weaving shops in action. Here at Nazareth Village, the carpentry shop is actually responsible for building and repairing the roofs, furniture, and agricultural tools of the museum. The tour guide was also good enough to explain why the ball of purple string they had on hand would not have been present in a first century village; acquiring purple dye was a labor intensive process involving diving in the sea, and was therefore expensive and reserved for the aristocracy.

Last, we were taken to a reconstruction of a first century synagogue. The Nazareth Village synagogue was built on the basis of the two earliest synagogues excavated, those at Gamla and Masada. It is a simple structure, and does not reflect the theological need to replace the temple destroyed in A.D. 70. An early first century synagogue would have been as much as place of community assembly as a house of religious worship. The term synagogue originally comes from the Greek syn agoge, simply meaning 'meeting place.'

Unfortunately the internet isn't being cooperative and doesn't want to upload my photos. In any case, they're all there on Facebook under the Galilee album.

Anyways, that's all for now. Tomorrow is Shabbat, so I have no idea what I can find to do, but hopefully I can at least find an ATM to restock.