The Hortus Conclusus Convent ‎(دير الجنة المقفلة) in Artas, Bethlehem (أرطاس). Nestled in a fertile valley served by a number of subterranean springs, Wadi Artas (وادي أرطاس) south of Bethlehem was one of the very first agricultural communities in Palestine. The village of Artas was flourishing in 19th century Palestine and attracted a number of pilgrims, archaeologists, researchers and orientalists, who made it a subject of many studies. Some of them decided to settle there and purchased homes and integrated their life to that of the village. This is the Hortus Conclusus Convent in Artas designed and built in 1901 by a Palestinian engineer, Morkos Nassar (مرقس نصار of Bethlehem’s Nassar family), at the request of the Archbishop of Montevideo in Uruguay. It was for many years central to Palestinian village life, providing schooling and other services to the local Palestinian community, with an orphanage and a dispensary added to it in 1903. It is now inhabited by an Italian order of nuns who had established themselves in Latin America. The convent is believed to be on the site of King Solomon’s Gardens, and the name of the convent derives from Solomon’s Song in which he speaks of his beloved (“My sister, my spouse, is a garden enclosed a fountain sealed up. The plants are a paradise of pomegranates” IV 12-13). The otherwise quiet Convent comes alive on the Feast of Hortus Conclusus, which takes place the third Sunday of August every year. Guests to Artas also cannot miss the Artas Museum (متحف أرطاس) to get a flavor of the village’s past, or the annual Lettuce Festival (مهرجان الخس التراثي) that has been organized by the Artas Folklore Center since 1994, attracting both local Palestinians and tourists. #bethlehem #palestine