Avdat

A few hundred meters north of the Sede Boqer College is the house (open to the public) in which Ben-Gurion and his wife lived. The interior, largely unchanged since Ben-Gurion died, is scarcely more luxurious than the houses of other members of the kibbutz. It contains a small collection of photographs and letters.

In a carefully tended park adjoining the Library in the Sede Boqer Institute are the graves of David Ben-Gurion and his wife - two plain stone slabs in a square tree-shaded area on the edge of a sheer rock face falling down to the Wadi Zin. There is an impressive view into the gorge through which the river flows from its source in the Avdat spring.

After the Roman residential quarter at the Avdat site the path runs through the south gate into the rectangular Byzantine fortress. A vantage point in the southeast corner offers a view over the whole extent of the site with its (partly restored) walls and towers, a large cistern in the center of the courtyard and the remains of a Late Byzantine chapel against the north wall. A passage in the north wall gives access to the Roman military camp, which measures 90m/100yds each way.

The fortress, along with the town, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The church of St Theodore at Avdat is a three-aisled pillared basilica with three apses dedicated to a Greek martyr of the fourth century. The central doorway is embellished with two Nabataean horned capitals. In the floor of the lateral aisles are grave slabs with Greek inscriptions. One slab in the south aisle shows the Jewish seven-branched candlestick side by side with the Christian cross; another records that Zacharias, son of John, was buried here "in the martyrium of St Theodore". The sanctuary, in front of which, to the left, is the circular base of an ambo (reading desk), is two steps higher than the nave. It still preserves the old altar table. On the right-hand side of the principal apse and in front of the lateral apses are fragments of the templon (the low screen between the nave and the sanctuary). At the west end of the church are various conventual buildings.

Turning off the main road 3km/2mi south of the kibbutz of Sede Boqer(10km/6mi north of Avdat), we come to the College of the Negev or Sede Boqer Institute (Midrashet Sede Boqer) of Arid Zone Research, founded by David Ben-Gurion. From modest beginnings as a secondary school and teachers' training college this has developed into a large establishment with over 400 students. The teaching here, in history, archeology and sociology as well as in scientific subjects, always has reference to the special conditions of the Negev. A dominant feature in the extensive grounds of the Institute is the library building, which houses not only a large specialized library but also Ben-Gurion's archives, which contain much highly important material on the history of Jewry in the 20th century and of the state of Israel.

En Avdat, the spring near the ruined city of Avdat, is one of the most surprising natural phenomena in the Negev. Between Avdat and Sede Boqer, in the middle of a barren upland region of almost oppressive austerity, with only a few scattered settlements, four springs emerge from the rock. In order to preserve this unique and unspoiled area it has been declared a National Park.

The water from the spring of En Avdat falls into a pool and then enters a deep gorge. This is the origin of the Nahal Zin, which then flows through the Wilderness of Zin (Midbar Zin). After the tribe of Judah settled in the area this was the southern frontier of their kingdom (Joshua 15,1). Bounded on the north by hills rising to 500m/1,650ft and on the south by hills almost 800m/2,625ft high, it slopes down to the Arava depression, to the south of the Dead Sea.

History

From the wilderness of Paran the children of Israel, led by Moses, came into the wilderness of Zin, where they found themselves short of water. Then, on the Lord's command, Moses smote the rock with his staff and "the water came out abundantly, and the congregation drank, and their beasts also" (Numbers 20,1-11). We are not told whether this was the spring of En Avdat; but the story shows the importance of a spring in an arid region like the Negev.

The spring

There is a road to the spring from the College of the Negev, 3km/2mi south of Sede Boqer. From here it is a full hour's drive to the site. Going towards the College, take a track which goes off on the right just before the first houses and runs down into the gorge, with the surface getting steadily worse. Always keeping to the right, you come to a parking-place in the valley, from which there is a footpath to the spring. The valley becomes ever narrower, its rock walls reflecting the sun, and the stream flows down amid tumbles of rock and scrub vegetation. Finally the path comes to the pool into which the water of the spring flows over a rock wall. Every morning and evening the ibexes which live in this area come down to drink - though the water is fairly bitter.

On the way back to the parking-place the library of the College of the Negev can be seen on a high rocky cliff, with the trees surrounding David Ben-Gurion's grave in front of it.

Half way along the road between the two parking lots at the Avdat site a footpath goes off on the right to a Nabataean tomb. It is entered through a vaulted antechamber of dressed stone. Straight ahead is a doorway, on the lintel of which is a relief depicting a horned altar flanked by the moon, with a star (left), and the sun (right) and by two columns. The door leads into the burial chamber, which in the Nabataean fashion is hewn from the rock, with numerous narrow grave recesses in the walls (five to the left, eight straight ahead, nine to the right).

From in front of the tomb there is a good view of Michael Evenari's experimental "Nabataean" farm.

Adjoining the terrace at Avdat is the entrance to the atrium of the North Church, the dedication of which is not known. This is also a three-aisled basilica with three apses. In the south aisle the consoles supporting the roof beams have been preserved. In front of the sanctuary, to the left, is the square base of an ambo. Two steps lead up into the sanctuary with its square altar.

The return to the lower parking lot is by way of a flight of steps leading down from the terrace beside the font, from which a path continues past two tomb chambers and the so-called Saint's Tomb (named after the image of a saint with a Greek inscription) near the remains of a Byzantine house. To the west of the parking lots is a Byzantine bath-house which was still in use in Arab times.

From the upper parking lot at the Avdat site a path leads north through a Roman residential quarter with a semicircular upper section and a rectangular lower section. Nearby is a stone with a Nabataean inscription.

Adjoining the west side of the fortress at the Avdat site is another courtyard, the sacred precinct. This dates from Byzantine times and contains two churches, built on the sites of Nabataean and Roman temples.

The kibbutz of Sede Boqer ("Farmers' Field"), 50km/30mi south of Beersheba, was founded by ex-soldiers on May 15th 1952 - the fourth anniversary of Israeli independence - in what was then a trackless waste in the Negev, near the Wadi Zin. The aim of its founders was to bring the desert into cultivation.

The kibbutz has close associations with David Ben-Gurion, Israel's first prime minister. When Ben-Gurion resigned in 1953 he joined the young kibbutz in order, as he said, to do "what was really important": that is, to develop the Negev. Fourteen months later, however, he returned to politics, first as minister of defense and then as prime minister for a second time. In 1963, at the age of 77, he finally retired to Sede Boqer, which then became a focal point of Israeli political life. He died in 1973 and was buried in the kibbutz.

At the west end of the sacred precinct of Avdat, where the ground falls steeply away, is a broad terrace with a colonnade on the inner side. It is reached through a doorway which - like the central doorway of St Theodore's Church - has Nabataean capitals. On the terrace is a cruciform baptismal font (restored).