ESRA's Mid-week Hiking Club took a bus full of enthusiastic hikers on a trip to the Adulam Grove area, near Bet Guvrin. The weather was glorious, and we saw many spring-time flowers. We hiked around clumps of Cyclamen, areas of Anemones and Groundsel, and through green fields full of stretches of yellow Mustard. At the end of the day, we were treated to the Mandrake דודאים, and heard the interesting story of its roots in local folklore.


The hike was moderate in nature, and took us through lightly-treed, rolling countryside, where we climbed up to Horvat Burgin. This has been occupied since the time of the Judean kingdom, through the Byzantine period and up to a pre-1948 Arab village. At the site were fortification walls, cisterns, and wine presses.


We entered a number of bell caves, which are man-made structures, carved out from the soft limestone rock, and protected by an upper layer of hardened cap rock, called Nari. It was explained that they were likely built originally to quarry out the limestone rock, but were subsequently used for habitation, storage, wine presses, columbarium, and keeping animals.


We then walked to Horvat Midras, which is the site of a large Jewish settlement that dates from the time of the Second Temple until the Bar Kochba Revolt. Here we saw the recently uncovered mosaic floor of the synagogue, and burial caves, with their sarcophaguses and ossuaries.

Finally, we saw the refuge tunnels and hiding places built during the Bar Kochba Revolt, and heard of their fights against the Romans. Those more adventuresome amongst us crawled along their dark, winding, half meter high tunnel system, and managed to overcome their traps and dead ends that had been designed to trick and capture the attackers.



Many thanks to Reuven Arad our guide and Jack Rabinowitz who organises ESRA's midweek hikes.


Submitted by David Smith aided by Norma Franklin

To see David's photo album of the hike on Facebook click here