Lenten Journey with Jesus Week 2: Nazareth and Sepphoris

This picture is outside the Church of the Annunciation. It is a very large Church as you can see.

This picture is the Church of the Annunciation from above, now you can see how large it is!!!

This is called Mary’s Well, where the Angel Gabriel is said to have visited Mary.

This is the interior of Mary’s Well, in the bottom there is a small well and people throw money or religious items like crosses or medallions.

A close up picture of a Roman road in Sepphoris, notice the large blocks, in actuality they around like inches long, even 16 maybe by 9-10 inches tall, so they are large and they are imbedded in the dirt below.

A close up picture of the same road, see the pitted marks on the surface, a result of the weather and elements but also from carriages and horses going over through the centuries. It is hard walking on these roads because they are a bit uneven and they are hard, I cannot imagine walking on them with sandals.

Here is me walking on the Roman road! You can see how dry the area is, very little vegetation around.

This is an exquisite example of a tile floor from a Roman villa in Sepphoris. The detail and color of these tiles are really amazing. It is hard to see the color but there are different colors for each tile. You can imagine how long it took to lay these tiles in the floor!

These are pieces of tile for the mosaics, about ½ inch square pieces, small!

Those Romans were smart. What you are looking at is a sub-floor. On top of those little pillars would have been placed a regular tile floor. The sub floor had a little whole on one end where slaves could start a little fire, the heat would have radiated around the entire bottom of the floor so that the owners could walk on warm tile rather than cold damp floor, just like our heated bathroom floors, for those of us so lucky to have them! Those Romans thought of everything!