When driving south from Tel Aviv, the Negev desert starts gradually to take over with more sand and stones and less and less vegetation. This picture is taken north of Beer-Sheva.
It´s a region with small hills and still a lot of olive and fir trees which get less as one drives further south.
60km south of Beer-Sheva lies Avdat, a 2000 year old former Nabatean town, strategically placed on top of a small mountain. This is the view from the visitor center at the bottom.
When driving up the mountain, one passes a Roman villa whose inhabitants had an unobstructed view out into the Negev desert.
These kind of arches are very typical for the buildings from this time in the region. They supported the roof as you can see in one of the pictures below.
From the Roman villa one has a nice view of the whole city of Avdat. Even today with only a little part of the buildings and walls intact, it is quite impressive.
This is the inside of one of the towers of Avdat. Here one can see very well how the arches support the stones of the roof.
On top of the mountain, there is a big area covered with broken stones and collapsed walls. All the small houses here presumably belonged to handicraft workshops.
Another tower which is still in pretty good shape considering it´s age of approximately 1700 years.
East of the big city wall from the Byzantine times, a large Nabatean military camp was located of which only few parts have been excavated and prepared for visitors yet.
The southern wall of the military camp is still very well preserved.
This building used to be an olive oil mill. When Avdat had it´s best time, the climate was much wetter than today in the Negev and the Nabateans turned from a nomad life style into more permanent settlements and perfected agriculture for their living.
Still they needed to collect as much water as possible so there are a lot of cisterns on the mountain itself and on its slopes.
This is inside the city wall looking west towards the section where two churches were erected in Byzantine times.
One of the churches of Avdat. The Nabateans gradually adopted christianity and blended into the local population when their kingdom became part of the Roman empire.
View towards the north-west out into the Negev desert. In Nabatean times, this must have looked much greener.
All the holes in the slopes of the mountain are cisterns used to store the water from the rain falls for the dry summer season.
View onto a big house probably belonging to a rich tradesman.
The western slope of the Avdat mountain is spotted with artificial caves dug into the limestone to serve as houses.
These "cave houses" have many rooms and are custom shaped with little niches where needed to best suit the needs of their inhabitants.
Windows and stairs connect the different rooms and houses.
Another example of the many stone arches formerly supporting the roof of the buildings.
Example of a "cave house" which obviously was used for storing supplies. This store consists of more rooms further in that are not accessible for visitors.
This is a Roman burial cave in the slope of the Avdat mountain a little bit aside of the rest of the city. During the excavations, the remains of 20 humans where found; probably rich officers or administrative persons.
Northern rim of the "Makhtesh Ramon", a "crater" in the middle of the Negev desert approximately 8km wide, 40km long and up to 400m deep. by
It was formed by a combination of soft sandstone layer covered by a harder layer which were later folded and shaped into a crater by some million years of erosion
The black areas at the bottom of the crater are places where harder rocks resisted better to the erosion than the surrounding soft sandstone.
Another view from the northern rim towards the southern side of the crater where the outflows are.
It is really a BIG hole in the middle of the Negev.
These square-shaped rock columns were formed when the molten lava crystallized and cooled-down under special geological conditions.
It looks really funny when all the stones have the same shape and size. This formation is called "curtains" and is only found at one spot in the Makhtesh Ramon.
From inside the crater looks even more wide than from above.
The northern rim is pretty dominant.
The southern border of the crater is not as high as the northern rim and consists of smaller mountains broken by small valleys which served as outflow for the water that shaped the Makhtesh Ramon.
Looking at these two mountains, one can see very nicely how Makhtesh Ramon was shaped. The upper layer of hard rock protects the soft layers below. Only when all the soft material is removed will the hard upper layer collapse and the crater grow by some meters.
The same two mountains from a distance. The Negev really is a rock desert. The temperature differences and the bright sunshine disintegrate the rock to gravel.
Another stony valley. Like many other places, it reminds me of the Island of Spitzbergen in the northern polar ocean where the mountains and valley look similar (just the temperature is 40 degrees centigrade less and there are glaciers laying around in the upper parts of the valleys).
Erosion can take very strange forms. This rock I found when strawling around on the southern border of the Makhtesh Ramon.
Another stone that is particularily formed by the water dissolving the limestone.
The Nabateans once controlled the "spice route" camel caravans from the East through Jordan to the port of Gaza from where the spices where sold to the European market. All along the route through the Negev, there were strongholds called "Khans" were the caravans could rest. "Khan Saharonim" in the Makhtesh Ramon is one of them.
A "Khan" really was a stronghold to protect the caravans and their goods. From the outside, one would only see a large and thick wall with only a little gate that was easy to defend.
A "Khan" consists of a large inner yard surrounded by many small rooms that were used to live and store goods transported on the "spice route". The girl on the left is Ünzile from Turkey who was an IAESTE trainee in Haifa.
The wadi close to the "Khan" was used as the water source. Even now many wild animals living in Makhtesh Ramon come here to find some water even in the summer months.
A little lizzard which we met in the wadi.
View from the balcony of the youth hostel in Eilat over the Gulf of Eilat to Aqaba in Jordan. The hotels on the left all belong to Eilat which is one of the most popular places for Israeli tourists in the whole country.
The mountains of Jordan abobe Aqaba in the evening sun. Aqaba is a lively city and Jordan´s only harbour but tourism is not well developed in contrast to Eilat.
10km south of Eilat is the Eilat oceanarium/aquarium. It both displays turtles, sharks and corals in separate aquariums as well as giving visitors the possibility to visit an artificial reef underwater via a 8m deep tower.
From the tower one can see along the reef that follows the sea shore...
...as well as over the Gulf of Eilat to the mountains of Jordan in the mist.
Tuna and many smaller fishes in a 360 degree aquarium. They were hard to catch with my digital camera because they were swimming quite fast.
View from the underwater tower into the reef around the tower. The tower is in the open water and the fishes have adopted the artificial reef as their natural habitat.
Most fishes have really striking colours which the camera did not reproduce correctly due to the light being filtered by an 8m water column.
And it's amazing to see how many different species of corals and fishes live and form a coral reef.
This is on the way back from Eilat in the middle of the Negev. I took a little "shortcut" on smaller roads to see a bit more. And I did...
In the middle of nowhere, there is just sand, gravel and rocks whereever you look. I was very relieved when I saw other cars passing me so I knew I was not totally alone.
Here the road was still in good shape but just 3km further, it suddenly turned into a gravel road and on the next crossroad there were no signs at all.
Although it was very dry now, the gravel slopes on the exits of the valleys prove that there is water at some time of the year.
Approaching the "Scorpion Ascent", the road get´s smaller and steeper.
The "Scorpion Ascent" was already used by the Romans to build a road from the central Negev towards the Red Sea. Later it was used by Israeli troops in the War of Independence in 1948 on their way to Eilat.
Compared to the flat topography elsewhere, it is really a big and steep ascent up into the mountains.
The road has many serpentines until one finally reaches the height of the plateau.
The following pictures are from the old city of Mamshit, another Nabatean city in the Negev approximately 50km east of Beer-Sheva. This is the yard of one of the biggest buildings probably owned by one of the administrative leaders of the city and used both for living and for office work.
View from the preserved tower onto an olive oil mill. Mamshit is pretty well preserved and it´s very easy to imagine the streets and buildings.
In some houses, even the ceiling of the first floor is still intact. In the back you can see the new buildings of the National Park administration and rangers.
The city is also pretty large and must have been a very important center of the Nabateans. It also has a good strategic location and in the time of the British mandate in Palestine, the British placed a guarded post here.
The wadi in the background was used as the water supply for the city. Even if there is no water at this time of the year, the trees show that there is more humidity than elsewhere.
In the Byzantine times, two churches were built in Mamshit of which you can still see the columns and the round choir. Even in the church, there was a cistern for storing the urgently needed water.
The floor of the churches is covered by a large stone mosaic. The motives used in the mosaics allow a rough dating of them as they changed through the centuries.
Horses were very important for daily life and the economy in Mamshit. This is a stable close to the church (again with the typical stone arches to support the ceiling).
Most Nabatean towns and strongholds where located close to a wadi to ease the access to the water.
The second church is not that well preserved but still impressive Giving the size of the city, the churches look rather big when comparing to contemporary communities.
The mosaic floor in this church was damaged in 1994 and has not been restorated yet. It is covered by sand to protect it and avoid further damages.
This was probably the market of Mamshit. There are a lot of small houses and rooms which presumably were used as shops by all the different merchants and handicraftsmen. The persenning gives shadow and can be found in similar ways in the market streets in Tel Aviv or any other Israeli city.
Archaeologists believe that Mamshit economically relied on the breeding of Arabian race horses. This is the largest horse stable in the city which could house up to 25 horses.
A little chapel like building with preserved original paintings from the Byzantine times.
Many capitals have not been restored to their original places and are collected in this room for further classification and restoration work.
The bath house of Mamshit. Even though water was a precious goods, the Romans did not want to miss the comfort of a bath house.
When looking closely, one can still see some traces of the intricate system of floor heating and clay pipes heating the walls.
Today, Mamshit is surrounded by small hills and from the current point of view, it seems to have been placed rather accidentally somewhere in the desert.
But it used to be a big and prosperous city and is even mentioned in a mosaic map found in Jordan on which it is symbolized by it´s strong city gate and towers.