Marissa, Israel

Because guess what: that's a place! I am an ancient Israelite city. My city is usually spelled Maresha, but Marissa/Marisa are also official spellings. Allow me to quote Wikipedia:

"Tel Maresha (Hebrew: תל מראשה‎), also Marissa, is an antiquity site in Israel's southern lowlands." 

The "s" letter in Hebrew can be pronounced as s or sh, so it makes sense.

I first realized this when I was in a kid. I found the city of Marissa on the map at the back of my Bible and it was very exciting. 

On our Monday field trip, the ruins of Marissa was our first stop.

There's not much there. Can you tell we're in the middle of nowhere? 

Marissa was an ancient city. Basically the only part of it that has lasted through the centuries are underground caves (used for storage, making olive oil, etc.). 

I wasn't super interested in learning about how the ancient Israelites stored their stuff during the Iron Age... but I did appreciate this cave with holes in the ceiling that created spotlights. Enjoy my cave photo shoot!

And my favorite picture: the moment when my friend Kaitlyn tried to steal my spotlight and subsequently fell while trying to do ballet. We have fun.

Another site we saw on this field trip was where Samson went on his crazy rampages.

The Old Testament isn't disturbing at all. Let's review my favorite part of Samson's story- when he tied torches to the tails of 300 foxes and let them run around burning down the Philistine's fields. Oh, and then when he killed 1,000 Philistines using the jawbone of an ass as a weapon. So special.

Less disturbing was the site of David and Goliath's battle. 

We also went to another biblical city, Lachish. It's fun to see how close together everything is from the Bible. We were southwest of Jerusalem. Israel is a tiny country, so we get to see so much of it. 

This was a LONG field trip day in 90 degree weather. We were gone from 7:30 in the morning until 6:00 at night. I was told that last semester this exact same field trip ended at 3:00. I guess our professors were having a little too much fun explaining things at the sites. As long as they were enjoying themselves, I guess. 

I was mostly just excited to be back in the air-conditioning at the end of the day :)