Day 3: Tel Megiddo..

Next, our journey took us to the first of two UNESCO World Heritage Sites that we would visit that week: Tel Megiddo. This site was occupied from approximately 7000 BC to 586 BC; excavations have unearthed 26 layers of ruins from different time periods. Batya said the palm trees were planted to give archaeologists shade.

I was fascinated by an engineering marvel: the 2,800-year-old underground water system (the shaft was 82-feet deep connected to a 230-foot tunnel to a natural spring). Normally, enemies could cut off access to water by blockading the well, but that was impossible with this hidden system. This was described in detail in James Michener’s novel The Source, which Batya recommended reading to learn about Israel’s complex history.