Articles tagged ‘ Madaba’

Articles Tagged ‘Madaba’

Jordan 5 – Dead Sea, Jerash and Wrap-up

Tuesday, June 1st, 2010

The Dead Sea

After having such a grand time in Petra and in the desert only a few more days remained to cover the rest of Jordan. Jordan is a pretty small country and there is quite a bit to see but at this point I was growing weary of sight-seeing and the lack of public transport was getting irritating (not to mention expensive). I decided to spend my last few days in Jordan based in Madaba which is a smallish city just outside of Amman. To get there, Celestino and I split a cab up the windy and very scenic King’s Highway. This road is not the fastest but it has some rather interesting views and you really feel yourself winding down in altitude as you approach the lowest point on Earth: the Dead Sea.

I was surprised when I first saw the Dead Sea that it was so blue and green in color. I don’t know what I expected…maybe black or brown because nothing grows there? I’m not sure…but I found the shore with the salt crystals and the blue-green water to be beautiful. On the way to Madaba the taxi driver stopped at Amman Beach which is a public complex where people can play in the super-salty water and there’s also a freshwater pool for when your skin can’t handle the Dead Sea anymore. Floating in the Dead Sea was fun and rather interesting. For one, the water tastes positively disgusting and even the slightest small drop of water burns your eyes. It’s not a great idea to get in with any cuts or abrasions either as it will sting! I was doing pretty well in the water…though after about 10 minutes I felt my skin generally starting to itch. The floating was fun though…you become very aware of your center of gravity and it’s next to impossible to sit on the bottom because the salt water keeps you so buoyant. As you can see, I opted for the Dead Sea mud treatment which is supposed to have some sort of healing properties…I don’t know about that so much but it was fun to smear myself with mud. I had to stop short of putting it on my face though as the prospect of rinsing it off with that salt water made my eyes burn just to think of it.

Floating effortlessly

Mud treatment

After a fresh water rinse and a dip in the regular pool, we headed off to Mt. Nebo. Mt. Nebo is, of course, where Moses was shown the Promised Land. I can only hope that Moses had better weather than we did as we were completely unable to view any of the Holy Land due to very dusty conditions. Further, the ancient cathedral discovered in 1933 is currently undergoing some restoration and renovation work so there was very little to see at Mt. Nebo. The few meager pictures I took are included here.

Mt. Nebo

Apparently a map of what I was supposed to see

Here is what I actually saw: dust

Church under construction…can’t go in there!

Seriously lacking in things to photograph at Mt. Nebo, this turkey seemed like a good option

The next day we took a half-day tour of Aljoun Castle and Jerash north of Amman. Aljoun Castle is set high on a hill with great views of three valleys and is said to have been built atop a Christian monastery. The monastery had fallen into ruins by the time of the Crusades so a local general decided to build a fortress around the monastery and the complex was much expanded and repaired over the next 500 years often due to earthquakes that have plagued the region. This castle was better preserved than others I’ve been to and we had fun wandering through the rooms and windy passages.

Ajloun Castle

Selling tea and coffee

Scenes from inside Ajloun Castle

For use in a catapult

These icky things were everywhere

We stopped off to buy some fresh cherries

After Ajloun Castle we headed to the great Roman site of Jerash…one of the best-preserved and most explorable cities in the eastern Mediterranean. Jerash is quite large and probably could’ve taken a whole day but we only had a couple of hours and my camera battery was dying. Much of Jerash began as a Roman settlement in the 1st century AD and after an unprecedented amount of growth the city found itself astride the lucrative trade routes that the Nabateans of Petra had been guarding so closely for so long. Only 100 years later things started to change in Rome and trade began to suffer.

Christianity became the official religion in 324 and as such many more buildings and churches were added but by the 7th century a Muslim victory over the Byzantines marked a new occupation in Jerash and ultimately, in a story that has become quite familiar to us, the city was largely destroyed by an earthquake in 749. For 1000 years the city lay deserted until Burckhardt (of Petra fame) and his European colleagues “re-discovered” it and like Petra it became an important tourist and archaeological site.

Hadrian’s Gate at Jerash

Close-up of the gate

The Oval Plaza

The Cardo (roman road)

The Nymphaeum

South Theater

Temple of Artemis

The Oval Plaza from afar

North Theater

Musicians in the North Theater

I don’t think I’ll ever get used to seeing this

My last day in Madaba was spent wandering around to all of the various churches housing the mosaics for which this city is famous for. The most important is a massive mosaic discovered in the Greek Orthodox church that is the oldest known map of the Holy Land in existence. The map is enormous so it was very difficult to take pictures of the whole thing so I’ve only included pieces here. In recent years, many, many mosaics have been discovered beneath the modern buildings all over town. Madaba, in seems, was the location of very important Christian mosaic art in the 4th and 5th centuries AD. The remarkable map of the Holy Land was discovered in 1884 during which land was being cleared to build a new church. I’ve included a few other mosaics from elsewhere in town though they don’t seem to photograph especially well.

And with that my friends the Mini-Extravaganza has come to an end. I hope you all had fun looking at pictures and maybe learning a little bit more about the Middle East. Thanks for reading!