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Megiddo trench

Panorama of the main archaeological trench through Tel Megiddo: 5,500 years of history in cross section. Civilization upon civilization built cities on the ruins of the previous one, building up a mound 60 meters high composed of 26 identifiable layers, each representing a rebuilding. If you've read The Source by James Michener, that was based largely on Megiddo. With a commanding view out over the Jezreel Plain, it guards a strategic pass on the main trade route from Egypt to Mesopotamia.

This shot includes the sites of several consecutive temples, with 2,000 years of worship at the same site, from the early Bronze Age through the first part of the Iron Age.

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Uploaded on Nov 13, 2009

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DSC04788

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Uploaded on Nov 13, 2009

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Rock Hyrax

An oddball mammal, offshoot from close to the base of the placental mammalian tree -- sometimes called the Syrian Rabbit, but has nothing to do with rabbits. Elephants & manatees are its closest living relatives -- what, you can't see the family resemblance? Well, guess that's not surprising -- even those, it's pretty distant from.

I was surprised to read that it doesn't have very good body temperature regulation -- it lives in relatively warm climates in Africa & the Middle East & supplements its metabolic efforts with behavioral thermoregulation (basking, huddling, or sheltering), like a lizard.

At this busy tourist site they have become quite used to people and were foraging right near the path. There was a group of a dozen or so, very social.

When I saw them, I got all excited -- hey, a whole new order of mammals for my lifelist! -- until somebody nearby in line authoritatively informed us that they were nutrias, a S Am rodent imported for fur (that quickly lost any useful fur in the warm climate, but is disrupting the native aquatic vegetation). I was so disappointed! Until later in the trip when we saw bona fide nutrias, which are totally different (and which I mistook for otters until I got THAT straightened out, but that's a different story!). Well, they're about the same size & color, but that's about the size of it! They have a long tail, for starters, and are aquatic like muskrats.

The "cape" in the name, BTW, refers to the Cape of Good Hope -- where European naturalists first studied hundreds of species and named them the 'Cape' such-and-such, even though they may be land animals found throughout all of sub-Saharan Africa (or beyond, as in this case), or seabirds found as far away as New Zealand.

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Uploaded on Nov 12, 2009  |  Map

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Aqueduct

Just the odd ruined aqueduct running next to the road. Between Acco (the destination of the aqueduct) and Nahariya, from Hwy 4. This one is Ottoman, built in the late 18th c, rebuilt in the early 19th, & in operation until the 1948 war.

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Uploaded on Nov 12, 2009  |  Map

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