In 1969, archaeologists located the original Bethlehem on a roughly circular mound, 770 meters above sea level and about 400 meters in diameter (including its slopes). The present Church of the Nativity stands on the western end of this tell, which extends to the area of the Milk Grotto and the cemeteries. The mound drops steeply on all sides we can see; on the west, however, the massive structures of the church make the slope hard to gauge. We can see the formidable height of the hill from Shepherds\u2019 Fields.<\/p>\n
No spring has been found. Hence, Bethlehem had to be \u201clittle\u201d(Micah 5:2). It took the birth of David to put it on the map.<\/p>\n
The inhabitants must have relied on cisterns. Throughout the ages, as the town developed, they kept hewing them from the waterproof chalk: there are thousands in the larger town of today, including some that are ancient. David, we recall, sent his heroes to bring him water from the well at the gate (2 Sam. 23: 15 \u2013 17). If this was a well, not a cistern (the Hebrew can mean either), it has since disappeared without trace. The so-called \u201cDavid\u2019s well\u201d (three cisterns, in fact) lies too far north of his Bethlehem.<\/p>\n
The want of a spring precluded farming by irrigation, and the area was extremely vulnerable to drought. We find biblical evidence for this in the Book of Ruth (see Shepherds\u2019 Fields). But the question arises: Given this vulnerability, why was there a town here at all?<\/p>\n
The mound is at the eastern edge of a ridge. This bends like a boomerang for one kilometer, first to the west, then northward. Along this ridge the town developed. Ideally, our bus would enter from the Hebron road (the main north-south road over the central range) and drop us on Paul VI Street. Walking SE on it, we reach the Lutheran Christmas Church. From here to the east we follow the bending ridge through the older part of the present town, passing through a neighborhood known as Harat en-Najajra. Its residents, according to local tradition, descend from the Ghassanites, the first Christian tribes of the region. They came from Najran (today in northern Yemen) joining a group of families known as Rathabreh, who had come from Greece in the Byzantine period. If time permits, we can visit the local market and stop at the Olive Press Museum, ending our walk at the place of Jesus\u2019 birth.<\/p>\n
1.Solomon\u2019s Pools
\n2. Shepherds\u2019 Fields
\n3. Bethlehem: Introduction
\n4. The name \u201cBethlehem\u201d
\n5. A town without a spring?
\n6. The Church of the Nativity<\/p>\n
1.\u201dSolomon\u2019s Pools\u201d: Water for Jerusalem<\/p>\n
As Jerusalem has grown through the centuries, it has always reached farther for water. Most of today\u2019s supply is pumped up from the coastal plain. In antiquity, the city relied at first on the Gihon spring, which, gushing intermittently, could provide for a few thousand people. Solomon, who expanded Jerusalem to include the Temple Mount, added reservoirs in the Kidron Valley to catch and store the Gihon water. When Hezekiah built on the hill to the west, he had a pool dug to catch run-off north of the Temple. (It later became one of the Pools of Bethesda.) A hundred years later came destruction and exile. The Jews who returned in the Persian period built a rather small city. It did not grow again until the mid-2nd century, the time of the Hasmonean. This was a major expansion. The Hasmoneans would have needed more water than heretofore, and they had the technology of the aqueduct. But where was the water?<\/p>\n
South of Jerusalem, the mountain of Judah rises gradually but steadily, a solid block, shaped like a loaf of bread. At several places along the peak (the \u201cwater divide\u201d) are springs. It was possible to lead this water by gravity into the city. Logically, the Hasmoneans would have done this, though we have no proof. Certainly Herod did.<\/p>\n
To see how the water problem was solved, we drive south of today\u2019s Bethlehem. East of the road are three large pools that bear the name of Solomon. In their present form, they probably date to the Mamluke period. If we go to the eastern end of the easternmost, however, we can see a green swath that winds south 300 yards. There is the spring of Etam, which takes its name from a First Testament city half a mile to the east. Herod the Great caught the spring water in two aqueducts, parts of which are still visible at various points. One of these supplied Herodion, a city he founded in the desert four miles to the east. The other followed the contours of the hills, though twice tunneling through them, for 13 miles (with a drop of less than a hundred feet) to cisterns in the Temple Mount.<\/p>\n
Later rulers, including Pontius Pilate, took water from the peak farther south. The longest of the Roman ducts winds 25 miles (= 6 miles as the crow flies) from the springs of Ein Arrub to Solomon\u2019s Pools, thence to Jerusalem.<\/p>\n
The area around the pools is lush, containing three springs in addition to that of Etam. The connection to Solomon derives from Ecclesiastes, the Preacher, who took as pseudonym the name of the wise, wealthy king: \u201cI made gardens and parks for myself and I planted in them all kinds of fruit trees\u201d (Ecclesiastes 2:5). The area of the pools received the credit for that verse, because it was the most splendid natural garden near Jerusalem. We find this identification as early as Josephus:<\/p>\n
The king himself rode upon a chariot in the midst of these men, who were still in armor, and had their bows fitted to them. He had on a white garment, and used to take his progress out of the city in the morning. There was a certain place about fifty furlongs distant from Jerusalem, which is called Etham, very pleasant it is in fine gardens, and abounding in rivulets of water; thither did he use to go out in the morning, sitting on high. (Antiquities VIII 7.3)<\/p>\n
Half a mile east of the pools is the tell of Etam. Following the water-rich valley for another half mile, we come to the village of Artas, whose name most likely derives from hortus, Latin for \u201cgarden.\u201d Here too people made a Solomonic connection, this time with the \u201cSong of Solomon,\u201d for there (4:12) the lover compares his beloved to a \u201cgarden locked\u2026 a spring sealed up.\u201d A 17th century source explained the application to Artas: \u201cIt is called \u2018the sealed garden,\u2019 (because it is surrounded) not by artifice, but by nature, not by walls, but by hills and mountains.\u201d<\/p>\n
The sisters of Mary, Our Lady of the Garden, with branches in Paraguay and Uruguay, inhabit the nunnery (1901).<\/p>\n
Source: Keel\/Kuechler, pp. 727-36.<\/p>\n
2.Shepherds\u2019 Fields<\/p>\n
Between Jerusalem and Bethlehem is a Greek Orthodox monastery named Mar Elias (St. Elijah). A few yards south of it, we depart from the main highway, the water divide, eastward onto a side road skirting Jebel al-Gneim (Har Homa) toward an Arab village called Beit Sahour (\u201cPlace of the Magi\u201d). Driving south, before reaching the village, one can stop and look at Bethlehem to the west. Below it are terraced slopes, below them a narrow valley. Behind, to the east, lies the desert.<\/p>\n
This is the best place to view Bethlehem as it would have been seen by nearby shepherds (Luke 2: 1-20). There are, if you prefer, three official sites for Shepherds\u2019 Fields in Beit Sahour itself (they require modest dress):<\/p>\n
1. The orange-domed Greek Orthodox church in the valley, east of the main part of town. (Telephone: 02-2773135. Call in advance to assure entry.) The church includes the remnants of a cave with a mosaic floor containing crosses. Since a Byzantine emperor banned crosses on the floor as impious in 427 AD, the mosaic must be earlier. The cave was then enlarged for a chapel. This site has had the longest life of the three, indicating a persistent tradition. See Murphy-O\u2019Connor, pp. 419-20.<\/p>\n
2. The Roman Catholic church. (Open 08:00-11:30, 14:00-17:30; Telephone: 02-2772413). The site includes a chapel designed like a tent (built in 1954), as well as a cave; a group can arrange to have Mass in either. Outside are the ruins of a monastery, dating from the 4th century AD to the 7th. This was one of many monasteries in the Judaean desert.<\/p>\n
3. The YMCA of Beit Sahour, east of the town center on the north side of the road. Here many Protestants commemorate Shepherds\u2019 Fields. There are no ancient remains. There is a grove of pines, a cave, and a view (not exceptional) toward Jerusalem and the desert.<\/p>\n
The area of Judah was famous for two main products: wine and milk. So we read in Jacob\u2019s blessing over Judah: Genesis 49:11-12. The wine came from the grapes grown on the mountain, and the milk from the flocks of goats and sheep that grazed in the desert. There must have been a great many flocks and shepherds in the time of Jesus: at each Passover, Jews in Jerusalem would have needed tens of thousands of unblemished lambs to sacrifice and eat. Thus the shepherds who raised these lambs heard about the birth of one who would later be called the \u201clamb of God,\u201d who would be sacrificed in Jerusalem at Passover.<\/p>\n
Another biblical account can be placed here as well:<\/p>\n
Situated east of the watershed on the desert edge, ancient Bethlehem was a fine, fruitful place in rainy years, but it had no spring and was vulnerable to drought. This is reflected in the Book of Ruth: Because of famine, Naomi and her family leave Bethlehem and settle in Moab, east of the Dead Sea, where her sons marry Moabite women. The family\u2019s journey fits the geography: the leeward side of the central range often misses the rain. Flowing down toward the Dead Sea, the air warms, because (other things being equal) the lower an area is, the hotter. Given this heat, the moisture in the air does not condense, which is why there is desert here. On the Moabite side of the Dead Sea, however (Jordan today) the air encounters a cliff. It rises and cools, and its moisture condenses as rain. Thus Moab sometimes gets the rain that Bethlehem misses.<\/p>\n
After ten years in Moab, Naomi had lost her husband and both her sons. Hearing that the famine was over in Bethlehem, she decided to return to Judah and bade her daughters-in-law to stay, since she had no more sons to give them. One agreed, but the other, Ruth, replied (Ruth 1:16):<\/p>\n
\u201cDo not urge me to leave you or turn back from following you; for where you go, I will go, and where you lodge, I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God, my God.\u201d<\/p>\n
They came back to Bethlehem, and being poor, they gleaned in the fields behind the harvesters, who were forbidden to pick up any sheaves they dropped or to reap the corners (Leviticus 19:9-10). At this point comes the story of Ruth and Boaz (Ruth, 2-4). They marry and beget Oved, the father of Jesse, the father of David. Thus David, the great-grandson of a Moabite convert, is born in Bethlehem. Two centuries later, when the prophets foresaw the birth of the Messiah, they harked back to David. Micah, in particular, identified the town of the Messiah\u2019s birth with that of David\u2019s: Micah 5:1-5.<\/p>\n
3.The name \u201cBethlehem\u201d<\/p>\n
In popular etymology, the name Bethlehem means \u201cHouse of Bread.\u201d (In Hebrew, beth = house, lehem = bread.) Often in the Bible, the name Ephrata is attached, meaning \u201cfruitful.\u201d Thus both names seem to refer to fertility, although only the soil west of the town can rightly make such a claim.<\/p>\n
Scholars dispute the name\u2019s original meaning. An Amarna letter (#290) refers to a town \u201cof the region of Urusalim (= Jerusalem)\u201d that has joined the enemy of Pharaoh. This town is designated in cuneiform by the sign bet nin.ib, which is preceded by the sign for a god. In 1915 a German scholar named O. Schroeder, using cuneiform name lists, equated Ninib with Antu and Antu with Lachama, an old Accadian divinity. This pair of equations gave rise to the widely accepted notion that the town of the Amarna letter was a Beth-Lachamu, the original of our Bethlehem. Schroeder\u2019s equations, however, are by no means certain.<\/p>\n
Bet nin.ib could refer to a Sumerian warrior god named Ninurta. In this case, the town of the Amarna letter could still be our Bethlehem: we can discern, in lehem, another possible Hebrew root: the word \u201cto fight.\u201d Bethlehem, then, would be \u201cthe place of fighting.\u201d This designation would suit the strategic reason for the town\u2019s existence.<\/p>\n
As for Ephrata, a Calebite clan of Ephrathites apparently settled here: Caleb married Ephrath, who bore him Hur, who bore Salma, \u201cfather of Bethlehem\u201d (1 Chronicles 2:19,24,50-51).<\/p>\n
(For more on all these points, see our source, Keel and Kuechler, Vol. I, pp. 613-14.<\/p>\n
4.A town without a spring?<\/p>\n
Bethlehem is only six miles south of Jerusalem. Amarna letter # 290 refers to it as \u201ca town of the land of Urusalim\u201d and complains that it has joined the enemy of Pharaoh. Jerusalem was the important city in the region, and Bethlehem was important to it for strategic reasons. Despite its natural defenses, Jerusalem had to worry about the armies of Egypt or Mesopotamia, which would likely approach from the Great Trunk Road on the coast.<\/p>\n
There were two likely approaches from this road; both were ridges unbroken by wadis. (See map below.) One ascends through lower and upper Beth Horon (the Beth Ur\u2019s of today) to the central Benjamin plateau, north of Jerusalem; here it meets the single north-south road of the central range. The second ridge ascends from the Valley of Elah, intersecting the main road southwest of Bethlehem. (It is the ridge that Saul is defending in 1 Samuel 17:1-3.) Jerusalem needed a buffer in the area between itself and this intersection. It did not always control Bethlehem (e.g., in its Jebusite period), but it thought it should: hence the complaint in the Amarna letter. Thus, Bethlehem always had the strategic value that Solomon\u2019s son Rehoboam recognized when including it in the belt of fortified cities protecting his capital. (2 Chronicles 11:5-10) It was a last-chance bulwark in the south.<\/p>\n
Once the decision has been taken to establish a bulwark between Jerusalem and the intersection, a small population would naturally choose this mound for its strength and its commercial advantages. Bethlehem projects eastward into the Judean desert, picking up secondary roads that cross it. It had immediate access to the desert\u2019s herding industry, as well as Beduin commerce. On its eastern flank, its people cultivated grain and olives. On the west they had vineyards and orchards.<\/p>\n
5.The Church of the Nativity<\/p>\n
We shall discuss the church in two parts:<\/p>\n
5A. The Manger.
\n5B. The church as a whole, including logistics for a visit.
\n5A. The Manger<\/p>\n
The focal point of the church is the cave of the birth. The Gospels do not mention a cave in this connection, but the tradition goes back at least to 150 AD, when Justin of Nablus recorded it. The cave he knew must have been the one that the Christian philosopher Origen wrote about in 248 AD, adding: \u201cFor the heathens, too, it is a well known matter.\u201d Two years later, however, when the Roman emperor Decius carried out the first empire-wide persecution of Christianity, heathens turned the cave into a sanctuary of Adonis. This profanation went on for almost a hundred years. In the late 4th or early 5th century, Jerome wrote a friend: \u201cBethlehem, which now is ours, was overshadowed by the grove of Tammuz, that is, Adonis, and in the cave where once the infant Jesus whimpered, people bewailed the lover of Venus.\u201d<\/p>\n
In Luke 2:7 we read: \u201c\u2026she wrapped Him in cloths, and laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.\u201d The Greek word translated as \u201cinn\u201d is katalyma, which in ordinary usage meant simply a large room (Kroll, p. 49). The slopes of Judaea contain many caves, and often people used to build their houses in such a way as to incorporate one; here the animals might be kept, as well as their feeding troughs or \u201cmangers.\u201d We may picture a house built against the western slope of the tell, containing a large room busy with people, and beneath it this cave.<\/p>\n
Today we enter by descending a few steps on the south side of the church. Beneath an altar on our right is a fourteen-pointed star. It marks the place where, in Christian belief, God became human. We cannot know for sure that this was the spot, but we do know that Jesus was born at a particular place and time, and here we have the place to remember that fact.<\/p>\n
When we come down the steps, on our left stand three candle holders, representing the magi. (One may insert a candle, bought from the cleric above.) Below them is a slightly deeper chamber, and on its far (western) side is a trough in the rock, covered with marble, in which lamps burn. This represents the manger. The visitor may sympathize with the reaction of Saint Jerome, recorded more than 1500 years ago:<\/p>\n
Oh that I might see the manger in which the Lord lay! Now we Christians, as though we were honoring Christ, have taken away that manger of clay and set a silver one in its place. For me, however, the one they\u2019ve taken away is greater in worth. The heathen world reveres gold and silver; the Christian faith serves that manger of clay. He who was born in this manger has no regard for gold and silver. I do not despise those whose reverence led them to install the manger of silver, just as I do not despise those people who wrought golden vessels for the Temple. But I feel awe before the Lord, Creator of the universe, who was born not between gold and silver, rather on clay. (Bibliothek der Kirchenvaeter 15, 211)<\/p>\n
5B. The church as a whole<\/p>\n
The Emperor Constantine the Great funded the first church here, a huge basilica, finished by 334. Fire destroyed it in the early 6th century, perhaps during the Samaritan revolt of 529. Pieces of its mosaic floor may be viewed by opening trap doors inside. Its atrium (or forecourt) lay in the open space west of the present building, from which one normally enters the church.<\/p>\n
Standing in this open space, we can view successive gates, all filled except for today\u2019s small opening. The majestic lintel of Justinian I surmounts what was the central gate of three.<\/p>\n
The church we have today is essentially the one rebuilt by this great ruler. It is the oldest church still standing in the land, indeed one of the three or four oldest in the world. It owes its survival to a number of peculiar facts:<\/p>\n
The church\u2019s designers put a mosaic over the outer door, showing the scene of Jesus\u2019 birth, including the wise men (Magi). Since these came from the east, the artists clothed them in Persian dress, complete with smurf-like Mithras caps. (Similar Magi may still be seen at Justinian\u2019s church in Ravenna.) In 614, the Persians broke into the Byzantine Empire. They massacred Christians and destroyed their churches. On reaching this one, however, \u201cthey were amazed at the picture of the Persian Magi, the astrologers, their fellow countrymen. In respect and affection for their ancestors\u2026they spared the church.\u201d (Baldi, p. 105, n.2.) This report stems from a letter written long after the event, at the Jerusalem Synod of 836, in the midst of the iconoclast controversy: the point was to show that images saved a major church.<\/p>\n
Justinian\u2019s church was later saved by another feature as well. The architects designed the eastern end as a cross, with large apses facing east, south and north. The southern apse could be interpreted as a Muslim mihrab. After the Islamic conquest in 638, the Caliph Omar visited Bethlehem. Revering Jesus as a prophet and servant of God, he prayed in this southern apse. (Ibn al-Batriq, cited in Marmardji, p. 4). Then he gave the Christians a written guarantee that Muslims would pray there as individuals only. When the Caliph al-Hakim, still in his Muslim phase, carried out a great destruction of churches in 1009, he had to leave this one alone because Muslims prayed here.<\/p>\n
Thus Justinian\u2019s church of 529 has survived to this day. The Crusaders filled in most of his great gate, leaving one formed by their typical pointed arch. Through it went the Crusader kings of Jerusalem to be crowned: they eschewed a golden coronation in the city where their Savior had been crowned with thorns.<\/p>\n
Later Christians walled up most of the Crusader gate as well, leaving an entrance smaller than an ordinary doorway, forcing all but children to stoop. (See the photograph above.) This too had its reason. In the mid-nineteenth century, the Greek Orthodox walled off the choir, abandoning the main part of the church, which merchants then used as a market, and \u201cthe Janissaries of the Pasha and the Beduins of the desert went there to tie up their horses to the abandoned columns of the nave.\u201d (Les Eglises de la Terre Sainte, Paris, 1860.)<\/p>\n
After receiving permission to expel the market, the clergy walled up most of the Crusader gate so that no one could get a horse in. That explains today\u2019s tiny entrance. The result, for a Christian, is fitting: One has to make oneself small to visit the place where God made Himself small.<\/p>\n
For a detailed explanation of the church, see Freeman-Grenville. Here are a few pointers:<\/p>\n
The basic structure, which we see on entering, goes back to Justinian (529 AD), who raised the floor above Constantine\u2019s and provided the 44 pillars, then unpainted. Its octagonal baptismal font, once on the eastern end, is now in the southern aisle.<\/p>\n
There were and are no seats. People would normally stand throughout the Byzantine service, which sometimes lasted for seven hours or more. \u201cAnd now we are entered on our travail and anguish,\u201d wrote Paul of Aleppo in the 17th century on entering Orthodox Russia, \u201cFor all their churches are empty of seats. There is not one, even for the bishop; you see the people all through the service standing like rocks\u2026 God help us for the length of their prayers and chants and Masses, for we suffered great pain, so that our very souls were tortured with fatigue and anguish.\u201d (Ridding, p. 14)<\/p>\n
From descriptions by pilgrims we know that Justinian\u2019s church was covered with mosaics, but the fragments we see today date from the 12th century. On the side walls of the nave, in the lowest band, the artists represented the ancestors of Jesus: on the south wall according to Matthew, on the north according to Luke. Above that, on the north wall, they put summaries of the decisions by the Six Provincial Councils of the Orthodox: we can still see Sardis and Antioch. Opposite these, on the south wall, were summaries of the Seven Ecumenical Councils. Today only that from the first Council of Constantinople remains (held in 381 AD): it confirmed the condemnation of Arianism. The summary of the Council of Nicaea is gone. Fortunately, a monk made a copy before it disappeared; the text is useful for understanding the elaborate ornamentation in this and other Eastern churches:<\/p>\n
The Holy Synod of 318 holy Fathers against Arius, who claimed that the son and the Word of God were created, met under the Emperor Constantine the Great. The Holy Synod decreed and confessed that the only Son and Word of God, by whom all things were made, is co-eternal and consubstantial with the Father, begotten and not made. It anathematized Arius.<\/p>\n
In order to overcome Arianism, Eastern Christendom surrounded the Lord\u2019s Table (the altar) with splendor and mystery, befitting one who is consubstantial with God the Father. We can still sense something of the old splendor in this Nativity church. As for mystery, we find it in the development of the iconostasis or screen, such as the one in the eastern apse. There was no such separation in churches before Arius, but in opposition to his doctrine, Christians of the East sought to stress the awesome mystery of Christ by concealing the holy Table from the eyes of the congregation. At first they used curtains. Justinian added a standing screen with doors, full of icons (hence \u201ciconostasis\u201d), at his great church of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople. Other Eastern churches copied this feature, until it became the rule. (Chadwick, pp. 266-67.)<\/p>\n
Crusader artists painted thirty of Justinian\u2019s 44 pillars. Today they make up one of the world\u2019s most complete collections of medieval paintings. The practice of polishing them with oil is responsible for their present dullness, although the smoke of the lamps has contributed too. The figures include not only the usual saints, but also saintly kings, such as Canute of England (1017-35) and Olaf of Norway (1016-29). If we stand in the middle aisle, we can easily find Elijah being fed by the raven (fourth pillar from the east). One pillar shows Onuphrius, a Byzantine monk who went naked; he was able to retain his modesty thanks to the amplitude of his beard.<\/p>\n
The Nativity church has been a place of strife among the Christian communities, although the matter has rested (with occasional exceptions) since the Crimean War and the Treaty of Paris (1856). Here the European powers accepted a firman (decree) by the Turkish sultan, assigning rights in the holy places. The Sultan\u2019s ruling is known as the Status Quo. In accordance with it, the Greek Orthodox have almost the entire church, although the Armenians and the Roman Catholics also hold carefully specified rights.<\/p>\n
Passing through the northern transept (under Armenian control), we leave the church and immediately enter another: The Roman Catholic Church of Saint Catherine of Alexandria, built in 1881 on the ruins of a Crusader sanctuary. It has recently been redesigned.<\/p>\n
The Christmas Eve Mass on December 24 is celebrated here. In the southern aisle is a staircase leading down to a series of caves. (These grottoes connect to the cave of the manger, but the door is usually shut.) A number of traditions were linked to these caves, mainly in the Middle Ages. On our left, when we come down the stairs, is a low-ceilinged chapel believed to contain the graves of the innocent children. Before us is a chapel where Christians locate the angel\u2019s warning to Joseph, to take his family and flee to Egypt. Through an opening on the right, we find several grave markers with inscriptions, including St. Jerome\u2019s and that of his helper, St. Paula. Jerome himself described Paula\u2019s burial \u201cbeside the Cave of the Lord,\u201d so her grave is probably authentic. Jerome\u2019s was here as well, but a Byzantine emperor moved the body of the cantankerous Bible translator to Constantinople, and later it traveled to Sta Maria Maggiore. The chamber beside Jerome\u2019s grave came to be known as his study, where the Vulgate originated.<\/p>\n
Logistics for a visit to the main church and the manger.<\/p>\n
Modest dress required.<\/p>\n
Telephone: 02-274 3867<\/p>\n
Opening hours: Winter 05:30-17:30
\nSummer 05:30-18:00<\/p>\n
In the mornings the various denominations hold Masses in the manger with brief intervals between them. It is best to visit from 13:00.<\/p>\n
One may also inquire with Bethlehem Tourist Information, which is open from Sunday through Thursday from 08:00-16:00. Telephone 02-274 1581\/2. Fax: 02-274 3753.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In 1969, archaeologists located the original Bethlehem on a roughly circular mound, 770 meters above sea level and about 400 meters in diameter (including its slopes). The present Church of the Nativity stands on the western end of this tell, which extends to the area of the Milk Grotto and the cemeteries. The mound drops […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_pdfdraft_pdf_template_id":0,"_pdfdraft_pdf_button_visibility":"global","footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2274","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nativity"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sandydandy.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2274","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sandydandy.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sandydandy.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandydandy.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandydandy.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2274"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sandydandy.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2274\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2276,"href":"https:\/\/sandydandy.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2274\/revisions\/2276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sandydandy.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2274"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandydandy.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2274"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandydandy.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2274"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}