avdat revisited:

i've been here many times, so much so that I recognize the stones, even though there be multitudes. The stories stay the same- here is a cistern, here is a water channel, here is an arch and here is a baptisimal font- but the people are different. I notice the changes, walls springing up where they used to be none, inscriptions replaced, other inscriptions revealed, columns shiny and new rising up in one of the churches, vainly mimicking the old. I notice that the line separating the new from the old is unnecessary, the reconstructed walls are shiny enough to give away their secrets. Avdat may be an old abandoned Nabatean city, but modern ghosts move within, and it changes all the time- changes in a way that a casual visitor would never know, changes which creep upon the city like a sidewinder on the hot desert sand.