Crusaders, Cushites, and connectivity

It turns out St Peter's in Jaffa is far more impressive than I thought. It is built on the ruins of a castle built by Louis IX of France (aka St. Louis, king of France).  Napoleon stayed in the attached monastery when he invaded the area prior to invading Egypt, and to put it mildly it has an amazing  view of the Mediterranean.

One view of St. Peter's

Another view

.And to think, we haven't even gotten to the main sites yet.  As you can see, I have figured out how to add photos.  It turns out all you have to do is let Google have access to pretty much everything, or at least let them know that they do.  I didn't have to create any accounts, I just had to let everything talk to everything else.

The rest of the day was spent at Tel Aviv university. Someone in the group commented on how all universities have the same feel to them, and it really is true.  Most of the day was spent reviewing the relationship of ancient Israel to its neighbors, and we had fun digressions to relationships of ancient Egypt to other groups. In particular we focused on what the archaeological record tells us, and we had a field trip to the lab where they reconstruct pottery,which gives us dates and what generally was being done in an area (for example if you have four hundred pithos of one style, you know that there was large-scale trade going on at your site and generally the date based upon design characteristics)

And with that long rant out of the way,
enjoy the group in front of the  Tel Aviv skyline

Tomorrow we are off to Mount Carmel, which is going to be gorgeous!