Thursday, May 29, 2008
The Southern Church
The oldest church in Shivta and probably one of the earliest in the Negev. The church faces east and had only one apse, with a room on either side of it. In the 6th century, these rooms were turned into two small side apses and they had small niches (gaps) in which special boxes were kept containing relics of saints. These side apses were decorated with wall paintings, surviving fragments of which depict Moses and Elijah and the Transfiguration of Christ. Another interesting feature was that the church has no atrium (forecourt of a church). Outside the church we saw a large stone-built baptistery in the shape of cross for adult and a smaller, rock-cut font for infant baptism. An inscription on a lintel dates the building from the beginning of the 5th century AD, and one incorporated into the floor the year 640. The church has along hall bisected by 2 rows of columns.
The Mosque
Adjacent to the baptistery of Southern church you can see remains of a hall with 2 rows of columns. The hall has a prayer niche (mihrab) facing Mecca! It is hard to believe that a mosque and a church (as the baptistery was so close to the mosque and yet remained intact) functioned simultaneously....something rare to find these days. We were told that evidences indicate that the khalif (I dont remember his name) whose jurisdiction involved Shivta also had a christian wife and she remained herself as a christian despite being the wife of a devout muslim khalif (descendent of Muhammed). Interestingly, findings also show that some of his official documents had symbols of christain cross at the beginning and end!
Governor's House
These private buildings had no courtyards or gardens but has a tall tower preserved to a height of 8 m. The building is 3 storied and at its full height the tower stood about 21 m. The building is believed to be the residence of the governor who ruled Shivta. It is one of the few buildings in Shivta with the second story still intact.
Northern Church
The largest church of Shivta was part of a monastery and consisted of over forty rooms connected by a system of courtyards. The church has a large atrium (21 x 15 m). The walls are about 10m high and at the entrance gate, the first and last letters of Greek alphabet are inscribed, alluding to the words of Jesus "I am the first and the last". The floor of the church was paved with mosaics in geometrical patterns and contains an inscription referring to a Bishop named Thomas (517 AD). A side entrance lead to two more chapels. The baptistery, with a large stone-cut baptismal font, lies south of one of these chapels. This area was also used as a cemetery, and contains several gravestones with the names of monks and priests, dating between 612 and 679. In the centre of the atrium you can see a column (4P). Some say it represents a stand for a decorative vase. There is a diffrent opinion that the column was used by a christian saint (I guess his name was Sergius?...not sure). He spent his whole life standing on this column and pilgrims who flocked to Shivta visited him and asked for blessing....Though Shivta was not located on any major roads, its position near the St. Catherine Monastery (Mt. Sinai according to Christian traditions) made it a famous stopover. It is said that the inhabitants of Shivta utilised this intelligently. Through out these churches relics of saints were kept immersed in water and pilgrims collected the holy water for religious purposes. However, we missed the the Central Church which is the smallest of Shivta .....................lack of time.
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Weizmann Institute of Science Revisited (20-21 May, 2008)
As part of my research work I was in the Weizmann Institute of Science for 2 days. If you remember my earlier posts, I had snaps and details of the Weizmann Institute. This time I visited the Weizmann's house and the other monuments associated with his life. Chaim Weizmann (1874-1952) was the first president of Israel and a leading figure in the ideology of Zionism. Although he is a politician of legendary status in Israel, it was his strong scientific background that paved the first step to the formation of modern Israel.
A young scientist whose break-through technology defends a nation in a World War and acts as a catalyst for another nation to emerge from ashes after 2000 years. Does that appear to you somewhat like a fairy tale? The journey of Weizmann from a biochemist in the Manchester University, UK to the first president of Israel has a similar context. During World War I, Britain was facing shortage of the explosive cordite which was used for rifle bullets and artillery projectiles. The major ingredient for making cordite was acetone and which in turn was manufactured by distillation of wood. The inadequate supply of cordite during that wartime was due to the lack of acetone. In 1912, Weizman, developed a fermentation process using Clostridium acetobutylicum (also known as Weizmann's organism) to produce acetone from maize, a discovery that extensively resolved the crisis. His research and philosophy triggered the growth of the fermentation industries. No doubt why he is considered as the father of industrial fermentation.
Who could have thought this invention would dramatically change the politics of the Middle East region forever? After the war, when Britain wanted to honour Weizmann for his contribution, he declined any such idea, but instead requested for the need to gather his people from the ends of the earth. It was a request for a home to his people in the land of their ancestors. As a result, the idea of a Jewish homeland in Palestine was assured by the British Foreign Secretary, Earl Balfour. That event led directly to the milestone Balfour Declaration of 6 November 1917, which recognized Palestine as a ‘national home' for the Jewish people for the first time after 2000 years, and ultimately to the proclamation of the State of Israel with Chaim Weizmann as its first President in 1948! As a pioneering biochemist and a former student of Louis Pasteur, he has published some 100 scientific papers and was awarded, alone or jointly, some 110 patents. His work on the acetone-fermentation process is in fact one of the earliest examples of what came to be known as biotechnology.
Chaim Weizmann
Chaim Weizmann was was born in Russia in 1874 as one of 15 children of a timber merchant. He studied in Russia, Germany and obtained his doctorate from the University of Fribourg, Switzerland. In 1901, he was appointed assistant lecturer at the University of Geneva and, in 1904, senior lecturer at the University of Manchester. He became a British citizen in 1910. He served as President of the World Zionist Organization (1920-1931) and head of the Jewish Agency (1929-1946). He came to Palestine in 1918, and later established the important educational institutions Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Weizmann Insititute. Weizmann Institute was originally founded in 1934 by Israel and Rebecca Sieff, as the Daniel Sieff Research Institute, in memory of their son, it was renamed the Weizmann Institute of Science, in November 1949. In 16 February, 1949 he became the first President of the State of Israel and remained in the post until his death on 9 November, 1952.
Weizmann House
The house was the official residence of Israel’s first president, Dr. Chaim Weizmann and his wife Vera. Built in 1937, by Erich Mendelsohn, an architect who fled Nazi Germany it was his permanent home till death in 1952. The building contains 22 spacious and gracious rooms, along with wide verandas. The funny part is that you see a swimming pool, not in the typical back yard location as one might expect, but rather in the front. There was an extensive and lavishly furnished library with a collection of photographs of renowned personalities and his family. The one which attracted my attention among his collections was the photograph of our First President. My visit began with a short screening of the documentary inside the auditorium “A King without a Kingdom” which describes Weizmann's efforts on behalf of the Zionist movement. To my surprise I was the only one spectator for the screening of this document in English!
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