The Wall....

The Wailing Wall in Jerusalem shown here when I visited there in 2019. It is the wall built to retain the temple mount. There are 37 blocks stacked on top of each other and 17 of the stack are underground, not visible.  We took stairs down into a cave like area where we could see them underground. The rock is limestone that was quarried thousands of years ago in Israel. 

 Every three months we received items from Israel that were made by artists or food itmes. We sometimes get date syrup, coffee, spices and things like that which are being sold by small business in the country.  The cubes are for an ancient game played by throwing one up and picking up another with it in the same hand. The game is dated also back thousands of years. 

I stacked my blocks up to represent the Wailing Wall arrangement at the wall. The squares are made of limestone taken from the same area as the stones of the Wall were cut, the same quarry. The interesting thing about these are their physical characteristics. The stone is chalky even though it is very hard. The stone has a cooler feel than room temperature. It was strange to pick them up and feel that cold, it may be a dampness that makes them colder. They still are very strong, dense, hard when you press against them. The same kind of limestone stone is what we use here in our state for our gravel roads. It is spread in layers to keep a dirt road safe from being saturated from rainfall. Ours may be a softer form of limestone as they dig it up in river bed areas and grind it to smaller pieces.

My wife created this painting of the Wall.  She resourced a photo graph she had taken. We both were able at be at the Wailing wall. They had the small caps for the men to wear. They are called kippahs. I could select one and return it when I left.The left section of the area was for the men to pray and the right side was designated for the women to pray. 

Thanks for stopping by today.