A Broad and a Dude Abroad: Israel Museum and Dead Sea Scrolls

After settling back into life here, I took advantage of an incredibly lovely afternoon, and grabbed a taxi to the Israel Museum, where the Dead Sea Scrolls are housed.

The museum itself is being completely revamped, and I was told at the ticket booth "you know, nothing is open, yes?" To which I replied "the Shrine of the Book and the youth area, thanks!" and paid my 36NIS ($10) to get in. The entrance price includes an audio tour, but I decided to wait until Lee was with me to get all the verbal down low. (you're welcome, hon.)

You walk through a glassed in lobby, where my bag was searched and I was metal detected, and passed through into the back 'yard' for lack of a better description. Right in front of me was a MASSIVE to-scale model of Jerusalem during the time of the Second Temple. Apparently it was completed in 1967, and unveiled two days before the start of the 6-day war, which is when Israel won Jerusalem back. (remember our first cab driver....."in 1967..."?) The irony of that is that the model was built to give Jerusalem back to the Jews, who weren't allowed to enter it during the time of the occupation, and as soon as it was complete, Israel opened Jerusalem up to everyone.
The model itself is huge and impressive, and it was really cool when I realized I recognized the layout of the Old City by having been there several times. This is a recreation of what Jerusalem was like waaaaaay back when, before the Second Temple was destroyed. The Western (wailing) Wall is the border of the ruins of the Second Temple.

(The model; A closeup of the Second Temple recreation)

After walking around with my mouth hanging open, I started to make my way to the Shrine of the Book, and got thoroughly distracted by the Art Garden that makes up the entire back portion of the museum. Well, the parts that are open at least- the 'under construction' bits are giant, and take up a large amount of property. The art garden is what you'd imagine pretty much; large strange sculptures, spaced out at odd intervals along a graveled path. There were some very cool things: "These stone pipes ran water from Solomon's Pools to Jerusalem during Roman occupation". My favorite piece was one that I stumbled on, it was a cut out tunnel in what appeared to be a solid wall, and you enter into a large pyramid shaped room, with the top cut out and open to the sky. It literally was breathtaking when I walked in. Obviously my photos can't nearly do justice to what it was like inside, but I tried to capture as must as possible.

(thirsty Romans needed water....)

(The hidden tunnel; the amazing open ceiling inside the exhibit)

(Random big art in the Art Garden)

After meandering around in the wilderness for a while (I was by myself for the majority of the time- I'm guessing Wednesday at 2pm isn't a huge rush time for the museum), I head to the Shrine of the Book. The big tamale. The gotta-see-it exhibit. The building is designed underground, with two big pieces above ground to symbolize the battle between the sons of darkness and the sons of light (which play major roles in Hebrew history, as I learned inside the exhibit). Unfortunately, I wasn't allowed to take photos inside, which isn't a surprise considering the fragility of the scrolls.

Once you enter the building, there is a small room off to the left, where some really old book lives. It's really old. And I can't for the life of me remember what it was called. It is the oldest record of all Hebrew prayers for high holidays, in illuminated text, and it was a beautiful piece of art, as well as historical document.

To reach the meat of the exhibit, you have to go through a hallway with dioramas lining both sides. The displays outline the history of the dead sea scrolls, and the bedouins that both wrote and protected the them through some pretty serious times of persecution. Along with bits and pieces of scroll, there were artifacts - sandals, pottery, hair nets (!!), clothing, jewelry - and a bit of history describing life back then. In the desert.

The main part of the scroll display is in a circular dome, with the centerpiece being a replica (looked almost like a very high-quality photocopy) of the scroll, including the big wooden spool, that is the earliest written version of the bible. Yeah, the oldest documentation. Around the outside walls were additional pieces of scrolls detailing rituals and processes: purification before eating, proper disposal of remains, how a temple should be built, etc. This is where I learned that Esther is a book in the Hebrew bible. The super old testament. Lee tells me it's a book in the new testament as well, but as I'm not well educated in spiritual matters, I'm gonna just take his word. (Hi Esther!). The scrolls are OLD. Restored relatively well, there were varying states of decay/destruction, but seeing the old Hebrew writing was incredible. The mood inside was somber, as I had expected, and totally surreal. I still have a hard time realizing that this is the real deal, where current religions and modern times began.

As the museum really only consists of these small areas, I was done with everything in about 90 minutes. After a quick swing through the tiny gift shop (I had hoped to find something for the girls, but it was all mostly generic museum stuff), I headed back to my hood for the rest of the afternoon.

I'm going to see an old friend of mine this weekend, perhaps spend some time in Tel Aviv that isn't in the movie theater? I also want to try to get down to Bethlehem. I heard from my cab driver that you can indeed take taxis over the Palestine border, which the rental car companies don't let you do (so much for renting a car to get down there!), so I will be doing that in the next few days. BETHLEHEM. Seriously? Church of the Nativity, here I come!