Saturday, June 26, 2010

Absalom's Pillar

This last week has been crazy with eight-hour days of classes, preparing for finals, excessive amounts of reading, etc. I did have a break for a few hours in between classes on Wednesday though, so I headed down the Kidron Valley to visit a few quick sites.

Our first stop was Absalom's Pillar, and getting there was quite the adventure. I have never claimed to be good at finding things. Pretty sure my sense of direction is non-existent. Usually I am with people who know where they are going though so it doesn't really matter...sadly, this was not the case on this particular adventure haha. We found what we were sure was the entrance gate to the tombs-but it was locked. We figured this was just a mistake and so naturally we hopped the short fence blocking the path-no big deal. Unfortunately, it turned out that the gate being locked was not a simple mistake and that we were actually not even at the entrance of Absalom's Pillar. Two Arab men were kind enough to loudly inform us of this, along with the fact that we were trespassing on private property-whoops! Luckily, we scurried off quick and were able to avoid being thrown into a Palestinian Prison.

the clearly marked sign we somehow missed

our lovely "uh-oh" faces

We finally made it to Absalom's pillar, which was really cool and MASSIVE! The Old Testament talks about how Absalom built this pillar because he did not have any children and wanted some way to preserve his name, which I guess worked pretty well because this monument honoring him is still around today!


We were only able to see a few other tombs before heading back to class, but our quick, and adventurous, outing definitely made our day much more exciting!

2 comments:

  1. You must have inherited your sense of direction from me -- sorry 'bout that!

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  2. Haha. I was just reading this in the Bible and was curious if it was still around. Apparently it is!! :)

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