2 March 2022
A pleasant evening walk into the desert from the south east corner of Yeruham raised more questions than it answered. The first thing I came across were two squares, excavated by the Israel Antiquities Authority, but I have no idea what they represent or what was found.
Nahal Shualim (shualim means foxes) is a loess wadi (loess is a sedimentary deposit composed largely of silt-size grains that are loosely cemented by calcium carbonate) which travels north-west from the Givot Masakh, on the western edge of the Makhtesh Hagadol, to empty into the Yeruham Lake. Most of the year it is dry, but after the rains it contains a number of water holes.
My walk took me upstream, where the riverbed enters a number of gorges. At one point there is an ancient retaining wall, which runs for about 70 metres along the western edge of the wadi, priding evidence of cultivation of the area in former times.
People love to scratch pictures and names into rocks, and there are a number of clearly-modern examples on flat rocks which the river has exposed over time. However at a certain point there is a large, flat, gently-sloping rock floor on which are dozens of ancient rock paintings reflecting the variety of animals and occupations particular to the region over the last two millennia. Their age is uncertain, but some of the animals represented appear to be extinct in the region for some centuries. Click on the slideshow below:
The Israel Antiquities Authority recognises the importance of the ancient rock art―petroglyphs are rock carvings, whereas rock paintings are called pictographs―in the Negev, but is understandably wary of the potential danger involved in exposing it to the broader public. The best known rock art in Israel is perhaps at the isolated Mount Karkom on the Sinai border, which has 40,000 examples of rock art, though this is rarely accessible due to IDF closures. Such art is exposed and vulnerable, easily defaced or removed. Although there are thousands of such works all over the Negev, most are not publicised, and this one was not especially easy to find, although Yeruham's tourist website does refer to it.
There is something very exciting about finding ancient rock art in the middle of the desert. Even experts have a hard time dating them accurately, let alone understanding who created them and for what purpose. The rock art in the Negev has remained for thousands of years without having been damaged, an ancient tradition which continues in the activities of the Bedouin today.
Apart from the rock art, for me it is very exciting during the winter months to find beautiful desert flowers, contrasting with the wide expanses of dry rock and sand.
Left: Fine-leaved Star of Bethlehem, Ornithogalum trichophyllum (נץ-חלב דק-עלים), with a white desert snail;
Right: Yellow Star of Bethlehem, Gagea commutata (זהבית השלוחות), named after the English naturalist Sir Thomas Gage.
Here even the snails are more like dry rock than living creatures. The extremely common white desert snails, Sphincterochila boissieri or zonata (some say they are synonymous species) (לבנונית קמוטת–פה), litter the ground and, after the rains, the low bushes (see picture below). This air-breathing, terrestrial snail is common throughout the Negev and Sinai Deserts. It is well-adapted for the desert to avoid desiccation, having a thick shell and a small aperture, a thick epiphragm (dried mucus elastic seal to the aperture) which it renews after each period of activity, and slow body surface heat conduction. It is only active for a few days out of the year, after a rainfall during the winter season—about 18-26 days in toto during the year, depending on rain patterns. It practises aestivation (a state of dormancy, similar to hibernation, although taking place in the summer rather than the winter, characterized by inactivity and a lowered metabolic rate in response to high temperatures and arid conditions).
