An Overlooked Issue

Well the results are in from the NH primary. Everyone knows the big stories from it regarding Hillary and McCain. Mike Huckabee did quite well finishing 3rd when just last week the polls showed him in 4th or 5th. He is definitely gaining momentum and is being noticed by both Democrats and Republicans. In many ways, he is a different kind of candidate--one that neither party really knows how to handle. I am extremely excited about Huckabee as a candidate. Call me a little crazy, but I have been watching a bunch of YouTube videos of him and try to catch him on the debates and interviews. It seems that every time I see him, I am impressed. He is quick on his feet, holds up well under pressure, and seems like he is actually enjoying himself. If you haven't seen Mike Huckabee speak, at least take a look at this video posted on YouTube.

The one issue that is rarely mentioned or discussed by the press is about Israel. Israel is and will continue to be a pivotal issue in the years ahead. If a national leader does not have a sound approach, he/she will fail miserably at home. I am actually concerned about the current administration's methods to "bring peace" to Israel by entertaining the idea of splitting up the land again. It could be a total disaster. Mike Huckabee is the only candidate I have found that actually appears to understand the importance of supporting Israel and is committed to doing so. He is opposed to the common notion that Israel must give up land to bring about peace. Every time Israel has conceded land, it has only brought about more problems. "Land for peace" is not a viable solution. This may be the most significant issue of the entire race, but no one is talking about it.

Watch this video of an interview between Huckabee and Wolf Blitzer on CNN on the Israel situation.

The Tunnels of Hyrcania

I should tell a little more about my trip to Israel in March/April. Besides doing GPR scanning at Herodium, we also did some GPR scanning in two tunnels in Hyrcania. These tunnels are rather mysterious because the archeologists don't know why they were dug, nor do they know when they were built. These tunnels are situated in the sides of mountains in a wadi (dry river bed). The region is known as the Valley of Echor. The photo on the right is looking down into the tunnel from the entrance, so it appears to be well lit, but it was not (this photo used a flash). We had a rope that went down about one-third of the way (it would have been nice to have had one all the way down).

I personally was not totally prepared for the challenge of being in these tunnels. Stairs had been carved into the bedrock 150 m (450 ft) into the mountain. The inclination of the tunnels was about 45 degrees, so it was pretty steep. The tunnels got as narrrow as about 2 ft in places and 5.5 ft tall. Needless to say it was very dark (fortunately I had a head lamp with me). The archeologist (Oren Gutfield) told us that when they had dug in the tunnels to clear hard packed debris, they had run out of oxygen at the bottom. He also told us of other dangers that had been present. Needless to say, this made me get a bit nervous. I was also a little concerned that we might run into some animals that had decided to go into the tunnel and perhaps couldn't get out. He kind of chuckled at my worry about the animals. Little did I know that I would actually welcome the sight of the animals that we saw at the bottom. When we reached the end, we saw two pigeons that were ALIVE! I was thrilled to see that they were alive (in the photo to the right, Oren is holding one of the pigenons)--that meant that there was enough oxygen for them to live, so we probably would have enough O2 as well. Near the end the tunnel split into two chambers, they both ended about the same distance down. It was very strange. Another interesting thing was that there were pockets carved out of the walls approx. every 5 ft, which had been there for oil lamps to light it.

Once we had evaluated the situation, we had to make the climb out to get our equipment to bring down. Two trips in one day was plenty for me! It was physically exhausting. We went back again another day to scan the other tunnel--that one was not as deep. On the right you can see me leaving the tunnel (I carried the water bottles, which was more difficult than you might think).

This experience was one that made me realize that I am capable of more than I think. It was a bit of a mental struggle to go all the way down into the tunnel, but once I was able to get over the head games, it wasn't so bad. However, I can honestly say that I don't have a strong desire to go exploring other long, dark, dirty, warm, humid tunnels.

The photo above was taken without a flash (with only a headlamp on) and shows the "light at the end of the tunnel" as we were exiting.

Excavation Pic from Herodium

This is a photo from Yahoo news that was taken recently at Herodium. If you compare the square opening in the middle on the left with the photo of Yaakov and Roi in the previous post, you will see that it is the same opening. They certainly did a lot of excavating after we left. It really is crazy to think that we were standing right on top of it...if we would have stayed longer (or gone a couple weeks later), we could have been there for the big discovery.

To the right is a photo that also shows this same square opening when we were there (before it was fully excavated). Mika is on the right.

Herodium

I went on a trip as a volunteer to Israel about a month ago to help do some ground penetrating radar (GPR) for a couple archeologists. While we were there, we did some scanning at Herodium at the request of Prof. Ehud Netzer. He has been doing excavations at this site for over 30 years. He told us that he still wanted to find Herod's tomb, so that he could feel good about retiring. There have been many speculations, but they hadn't found it at that time, but there was some new hope because a new area was being uncovered on the side of the hill showed some promise. He asked us to scan in the new area as well as at the base of the tower in the previously excavated area (a GPR team in the past said that the tomb was in the tower, but he didn't believe them).

To me it felt a bit like "looking for a needle in a haystack." There was a lot of area to cover, and we could not really give them any definitive data from our scans because the type of antenna that we had with us could only penetrate about 1.3 m in that type of soil. In addition, the fill on top of the stone was hard packed, so there was not enough of a dielectric change for us to detect with the equipment. We didn't know before we arrived in Israel what the scenario would be like in this location, which was unfornate. We were rather disappointed that we were not able to tell them more specific information (we did find some anomolies, but they weren't conclusive). However, it was a great experience to be able to work with Yaakov Kalman, Roi Porat, and the Bedouins who where helping with the dig. We even got to have lunch in the home of one of the Bedouin workers, which was a real surprise for us (the hospitality was terrific).

While we were scanning, we looked in some of the tunnels/entrances into the side of the hill. In the process, we saw some very large stones that Yaakov got very excited about. He said he had never seen stones like them at Herodium before.

Today, Prof. Netzer announced that they found Herod's tomb. When I saw photos of where they found it, I see that we were walking almost right on top of it. It is very exciting because we were working with this team just one month ago. Below are some photos from the archeological site.

We scanned at the site, but we were not able to detect much because of similar rock/fill dielectric constants and the frequency of our antenna was a little too high to reach the depths that we wanted to see. I guess they found it anyway.

Roi and Yaakov are excavating an area that is near the entrance to where they found the tomb.

Above are a glimpse of the area where "large stones" were that Yaakov saw the day we were scanning. He was very surprised by them and said he had never seen such large stones at the site before. It appears that these may have been the clues that led them to finding the tomb.

View of Herodium from a distance.

Below is the full story on the Hebrew University website.
http://www.huji.ac.il/cgi-bin/dovrut/dovrut_search_eng.pl?mesge117861762132688760