Sol says we'll start much earlier today since the sun on Jericho is fierce by ten 0' clock, so we've gathered under a palm outside the hotel and wait for him.
He's told us each palm tree costs $30,000, but since every hotel wants one to simulate an oasis for its guests, hotel investors are willing to pay for the planting.
I've read an item in that morning's paper about a dig in Syria uncovering clay 'minie-balls' like the one I found at Meggido. The stone hard fired clay balls were apparently lobbed from sling-shots, and I want to tell Sol that what we thought was a game counter was actually an ancient
bullet.
But when the van arrives and we pile in, I miss my chance. Sol launches at once into his soliloquy. "Jericho is one of the two oldest cities in the world, maybe the oldest. It is famous in the Old Testament for the battle Joshua fights. In the New Testament, Jesus walks from Jerusalem to Jericho many times. It is taking ten hours. We do it faster. But tourists are more
disappointed in Jericho than in any other place in Israel."
disappointed in Jericho than in any other place in Israel."
"Why is that?" We lean forward together.
"Because there is nothing to see." He sounds impatient this morning.
"Back in 1941, a woman archeologist gets the permits to excavate and find the famous walls that tumble down for Joshua. She spends four days digging, then she drives to Jerusalem and she gets killed in the car wreck. Since the permits do not run out for her, the antiquities office is not issuing new ones, and no one is coming to dig at Jericho since."
"What a waste," I say.
He gives me his rearview mirror nod.
"See, coming up is Jericho. That tel, that hill, is all there is left of the ancient city."
A low patch of green, an authentic oasis with natural palm trees, rises from the brown expanse of desert. There is nothing but the tel and one archeological cut.
We speed by it into a town whose main square is shaded by broadleafed trees. "Here is the new city of Jericho, built just before Jesus is coming.
As he parks on the square and gestures us out, he says, "In the first century B.C.E. Mark Anthony gives Jericho to Cleopatra. She leases it to Herod, who puts up the winter palace."
He leads us to a tree protected by wire fencing. "And here is the fig tree Zechariahs is supposedly climbing to see Jesus go by. Most tour guides tell you this tree is the exact one. But they don't know nothing. When the archeologists do the tree dating, this tree is only seven hundred years old, not two thousand." He looks at James. "But it is a good tree for pictures."
As James produces one of his cameras and shoots a photo, Sol indicates a placid camel folded onto the sidewalk.
"This is the typical camel saddle. You can take a ride on the camel if you want. It is the good price."
An Arab in robes and white headdress holds the lead and waits nonchalantly beside the animal. He doesn't acknowledge us as Sol talks in his usual loud monotone.
"But you see how the Arab is making his living. He stands and takes the money, but the camel is doing all the work giving the rides to the tourists. But the camels make the good pictures, too."
