I often find that a good guide as to how “worthwhile” a WHS visit has been is the extent to which, 2-3 weeks later, I feel I can find anything of value/interest to say about it in a review and how much “follow up” interest and research it has generated. On that basis our Incense Route visits failed miserably!

We visited Mamshit, Shivta and Avdat in that sequence across 2 days by car using the Beersheba area as a base. It can’t be that we rushed the visits as we in fact had plenty of time and only additionally visited Tel Beersheba and the Makhtesh Country on those days.

We have previously visited the rock-cut Nabatean sites of Petra and al-Hijr (Saudi Arabia) so, whilst we were perfectly aware that the Incense Route sites were not of that type, we did perhaps have expectations which were too high. What you get is a lot of not particularly spectacular desert scenery (though the more impressive makhtish are close by) and a lot of “walls” - Walls of houses, temples, churches, mosques, bath-houses, wine presses, markets etc, covering periods from around 1st century BCE through to around 5th century CE and encompassing Roman and Byzantine architectural styles. Some of the walls are accompanied by arches (Photo from Avdat), pillars and other architectural features plus some carvings and the occasional reservoir/water collection system (but NO tunnels, unlike so many of the sites we visited on this trip!!), mosaic (none of which were particularly striking compared with others we saw during this “holiday of mosaics”) and tomb (The most significant of these was a burial cave from the Roman period at Avdat – but this was nothing compared with those at al-Hijr and Petra).

The situations of the 3 sites do vary somewhat. Mamshit is located on a bluff above the Mamshit river gorge. Avdat is situated high on a hill and Shivta is remotely located in reasonably flat desert country towards the Egyptian frontier. Avdat was the busiest and had the most significant “Visitor centre” with an Audio-visual presentation. It was also well provided for with Souvenir shops and even a McDonalds! It seemed to be on the “coach party” circuit. Shivta was the most remote – it did have a guardian to hand out the brochure (though he didn’t “awake” until we were leaving) but didn’t have an entry fee. It was however most “crowded” of the sites during our visit as there was a large group of Israelis visiting it by coach as part of their training to become licensed guides!

We were perhaps surprised by how late these cities flourished – Shivta in the 4th/5th century when it was primarily a Christian town. Mamshit has 2 Christian churches and Byzantine mosaics. Avdat too reached its peak as a Byzantine town in the 4th/7th Centuries CE but also contains a number of ruins excavated from the Roman period.

So, given that any visit to Israel should include a visit to the Negev, then at least one of these sites is worth seeing while you are down there – but don’t expect anything spectacular would be my summary. I would also find it difficult to recommend a “preference” sequence if you could only see 1 or 2 of them.