A dove flies in a Columbarium Cave at Bet-Guvrin and Maresha National Park, Israel, on June 28, 2014. The columbarium is an installation to raise doves. The walls of this cave feature high-quality design and are carefully caved with over 2,000 niches. The raising of doves was very common in the Judean lowlands during the Hellenistic period. Doves were apparently used intensively----their meat and eggs as food and their droppings as fertilizer. Doves were also sacrificed in rituals. After the raising of doves as a prosperous industry ceased in the 3rd century B.C., other purposes were found for this cace, like many others at Maresha. In Maresha alone, some 85 combarium caves have been discovered, with tens of thousands of niches. Caves of Maresha and Bet-Guvrin in the Judean Lowlands as a Microcosm of the Land of the Caves in Israel were inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List on June 22, 2014. This "city under a city" is characterized by a selection of man-made caves, excavated from the thick and homogenous layer of soft chalk in Lower Judea. It includes chambers and networks with varied forms and functions, situated below the ancient twin towns of Maresha and Bet Guvrin, that bear witness to a succession of historical periods of excavation and usage stretching over 2,000 years, from the Iron Age to the Crusades, as well as a great variety of subterranean construction methods. The original excavations were quarries, but these were converted for various agricultural and local craft industry purposes, including oil presses, columbaria (dovecotes), stables, underground cisterns and channels, baths, tomb complexes and places of worship, and hiding places during troubled times. (Xinhua/Li Rui)
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