Where it is purported to have happened

Rome is the perfect location for things that supposedly or actually happened there. Emperors and opera characters. Israel has a place where something important happened everywhere you turn.

A square in the center of Rome, Largo di Torre Argentina, that includes four Roman temples and the remains of Pompey's theatre. You can walk around the whole complex but not enter it. It was functional between 4 BCE and 1 CE. It is believed to be the place where Julius Caesar was assassinated.

Castel Sant Angelo, originally built by Hadrian as a mausoleum for himself in 135 CE, is an imposing cylindrical building. It was subsequently used as a fortress and castle by popes during a tumultuous time in the 16th century. It is purported that Tosca (heroine of the Puccini opera by the same name) is supposed to have jumped to her death following her lover's execution.

Beer Sheva, a city at the northern end of Israel's Negev desert, is the 4th largest but was the location where a very important event happened. Be'er means well and this is the spot described in the bible where Abraham and Abimelech (Philistine ruler) made peace by digging a well. There is a visitor center called "Abraham's Well" but it was closed on the day we visited. This is an example of Ottoman architecture from the beginning of the 20th century. Before that the Romans and then Byzantines made it a fortress and then abandoned it with the coming of the Muslims to this area.

Negev Brigade Memorial is designed by Dani Karavan and built in the late 1960s at a time Israel was building many monuments to honor those who had died in wars up to then, especially from Israel's War of Independence in 1948-49. Karavan has had commissions throughout the world and has represented Israel at the Venice Biennale and Documenta. This was an example of one of the earliest land art projects. Land art includes work by artists such as Robert Smithson though the material (concrete) used here is much more permanent that most of the earthworks around the world. The next group of images give you a sense of the abstract and symbolic portions of this memorial. It commemorates the hard fought retention of the desert that had been granted to Israel when the United Nations created the state.

The view from our apartment (more about the building in the foreground in the next posting) and just so you know the crane is the national bird of Israel. Jerusalem is a series of hills, just as Rome is but because it's so built up, other than realizing you are walking or driving up and down it's hard to distinguish one hill from another. However, what I learned doing research about that building across the street is that the hill on which we are staying was the one from which the Assyrians and then the Romans besieged the city of Jerusalem.

19th century painting by David Roberts showing what the Roman siege of Jerusalem in 70 CE might have looked like. You can get a picture of the hills surrounding the ancient walled city with the Temple Mount in the center left portion. Our vantage point from the previous photo is probably somewhere around the two white towers you see close to the horizon.