THE CARPENTRY SHOP (HA-MINSARA) MAKTESH RAMON, NEGEV DESERT

A trip to MAKTESH RAMON, the worlds largest maktesh with it's magnificent panorama, located in the Negev Desert south of Beer Sheva, is always a very exciting experience. The crater, once covered by an ocean, was carved out by ancient rivers and erosion over the course of millions of years. Displaying a vast diversity of hills, mountains and rock formations and a wide range of fantastic colors due to mineral contents, it is 500 meters deep at it's deepest point.

This weekend we went to visit the maktesh, and enjoying it's marvelous views while driving slowly down from Mizpe Ramon, we stopped at the so called Carpentry Shop (Ha-Minsara) at the central part of the crater, the meaning of it's name becoming clear while hiking up the wooden trail on the low hill. Black prismatic stones sticking out of the ground and strewn over the whole place appear to be sawed out of bigger pieces. They have been created from heated sand, sand like sand on the beaches, which turned to liquid and in cooling down formed the rectangular and hexagonal prisms. By picking one up, we noticed they are very light weight, not heavy like real stones. Resting at the top for a while, breathing deeply and taking in the spectacular vista of the surroundings awarded us with great pleasure.