Mamshit and Haluza

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Mamshit

   Mamshit sits on a low spur above a dry riverbed in the northern Negev, a few kilometres east of Dimona, and from a distance it looks like nothing more than a heap of pale stones. Up close it becomes a town: streets, courtyards, staircases, arches, two Byzantine churches with mosaic floors and a set of large houses built by people who knew how to live comfortably in a hard place. This was Mampsis, a Nabataean settlement on the caravan routes that carried incense and spices from Arabia across the desert to the Mediterranean ports, and it shares a World Heritage inscription with Avdat, Haluza and Shivta as one of the desert cities of the Incense Route.

   Read the complete Mamshit write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Mamshit is where the day begins. Next is Tel Beer Sheba.

2. 2. Tel Beer Sheba

   Tel Beer Sheba is a mound on the edge of the modern city of Beersheba, in the northern Negev desert of southern Israel, and it holds the remains of an Iron Age town that has been excavated and partially reconstructed. With Megiddo and Hazor, it forms the UNESCO site of the Biblical Tels, recognized for their importance in understanding the cities of the biblical era. The name Beersheba appears many times in the Bible, associated with Abraham and the wells he dug in the desert.

   Read the complete Tel Beer Sheba write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Tel Beer Sheba comes up about 45 km into the recorded legs. Next is Haluza.

3. 3. Haluza

   Halutza is a ghost of a city in the sand. Founded by the Nabataeans as a waystation on the incense route from Arabia to the Mediterranean, it grew in the Roman and Byzantine periods into the most important city of the Negev, known in Greek as Elusa, with a theatre, churches and a famous school of rhetoric. Then it faded, the sand moved in, and today only fragments of walls, a small theatre and the remains of churches poke out of the dunes south-west of Beersheba. It is part of the UNESCO-listed Incense Route and desert cities of the Negev, along with Avdat, Mamshit and Shivta.

   Read the complete Haluza write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   about 116 km into the recorded legs you reach Haluza. Next is back through Tel Beer Sheba.

4. 4. back through Tel Beer Sheba

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Tel Beer Sheba write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   back through Tel Beer Sheba, late in the day. Next is Mamshit.

5. 5. Mamshit

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Mamshit write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Back at Mamshit. That is the ride.