Jerash

Early morning having breakfast at the roof terrace of our hotel in the city of Madaba. Lovely views of both the famous Church in Madaba and a large Mosque. We even had a small shower of rain. Unusual in this part of the Middle East.








We visited the city of Jerash about one hour drive north of Amman.











Jerash is an old and very well preserved Roman city.
Marks cut out in the rock, as can be seen in the picture above was all over the place. Apparently it is a sort of "board game" that roman soldiers passed time with when on duty (and possibly off duty as well..... we assume?). A game played with pips or stones moved around in the holes. Quite similar to many games still played today.









It is impressive that these columns are still standing after all this time. Especially considering that this is a fairly active seismic area.









Recent excavations show that Jerash was already inhabited during the Bronze Age (3200 BC - 1200 BC). After the Roman conquest in 63 BC, Jerash and the land surrounding it were annexed by the Roman province of Syria, and later joined the Decapolis cities. In AD 90, Jerash was absorbed into the Roman province of Arabia, which included the city of Philadelphia (modern day Amman). Emperor Hadrian visited Jerash in AD 129-130. The triumphal arch (or Arch of Hadrian) was built to celebrate his visit.
The city finally reached a size of about 800,000 square meters within its walls.











A list of names and one name is very deliberately removed. We wonder what he did to deserve being erased from history?










There are a large number of striking monuments located in Jerash: the Corinthium column, Hadrian's Arch, a circus/hippodrome, two immense temples (to Zeus and Artemis), the nearly unique oval Forum, which is surrounded by a fine colonnade, a long colonnaded street or cardo, two theaters (the Large South Theater and smaller North Theater), two baths, a scattering of small temples and an almost complete circuit of city walls. Most of these monuments were built by donations of the city's wealthy citizens. The picture above is from the seat of one of the Theaters. Just think of all the roman butts that have been wearing the stone down through the years.












Part of an old Temple dedicated to Bacchus.












Tourists in front of the temple of Artemis.














Again.... still standing..... amazing!

























































So the romans had water led to the city, advanced drainage systems and bathrooms with running water how long before we had that in Sweden again?












Original pavement of the road. You can still see the stone worn down by chariot wheels and the drainage system below.













Ulrica standing on the cardo.












In ancient Roman city planning, a cardo was a north-south-oriented street in cities or military camps. Sometimes called the cardus maximus, the cardo served as the center of economic life. The street was lined with shops, merchants, and vendors.

King's Highway

We drove for a day along a part of the ancient King's highway (from the city of Madaba to the little mountain village of Dana where we spent the night). The King's Highway is a most ancient route first mentioned by name in the Bible. Lining both sides of this 335 kilometer thoroughfare is a chain of archaeological sites that reads like an index of ancient history and a biblical gazetteer -- prehistoric villages from the Stone Age, biblical towns from the kingdoms of Ammon, Moab and Edom, Crusader castles, some of the finest early Christian Byzantine mosaics in the Middle East, a Roman-Herodian fortress, several Nabataean temples, two major Roman fortresses, early Islamic towns, and the rock-cut Nabataean capital of Petra.






This is the famous Madaba Map. It is part of a floor mosaic in the early Byzantine church of Saint George at Madaba. The Madaba Map is the oldest surviving original cartographic depiction of the Holy Land and especially Jerusalem. It dates to the 6th century AD.









We are being shown around a mosque in Madaba.











A stop along the way to look at what is known as the "Grand Canyon of the Middle East", Wadi Mujib.












We also explored the old Crusader Fort in Karak.








A good spot to shoot arrow at attacking armies from.










The fort itself is a dark maze of stone-vaulted halls and endless passageways.
























Karak's most famous occupant was Reynald de Chatillon, whose reputation for treachery, betrayal and brutality is unsurpassed. When Baldwin II died, his son, a 13-year-old leper, sued for peace with Saladin. The Leper King, however, died without an heir, and in stepped Reynald, who succeeded in winning the hand of Stephanie, the wealthy widow of Karak's assassinated regent. He promptly broke the truce with Saladin, who returned with a huge army, ready for war. Reynald and King Guy of Jerusalem led the Crusader forces and suffered a massive defeat. Reynald was taken prisoner and beheaded by Saladin himself, marking the beginning of the decline in Crusader fortunes. The castle was enlarged with a new west wing added by the Ayyubids and Mamluks.












































































You can spend a good few hours exploring Karak.


















Just to make sure to display the brand of the car in the front......














The lovely mountain village of Dana where we spent one night.








































The door to our room.










Thankfully not the door to our room.












It is quite chilly at night up in the mountains.
























A very nice man. It is funny how well you can still communicate with some people even if you do not share a language.

Hiking from Dana to Wadi Finan

This day we spent hiking all the way from Dana Village through Dana Nature reserve down to Wadi Finan.







We are heading to the end and the bottom of the valley, or Wadi before us.












A guy from the Dana village acted as a guide. You are not allowed to do this hike without a guide for some reason. He did not speak very much English but he was very nice and we managed to have some conversation. He did himself much prefer Irak before Jordan as a holiday destination. According to him Iraq is much cheaper, especially night clubs. We had to admit that Iraqi night clubs is a bit of a blank spot on the map for us. He was also very impressed by Magnus' Iphone. Proving that men can bond over technology across language and culture barrier anytime.


















Lunch break. It really did get very hot down in the valley during the day. Coming from the northern part of the world, as we do, you need to be pretty obsessive about covering up from the sun and drink plenty of fluids.











We met this guy along the way on his way to some Beduine friends with supplies. Sugar for example. The Jordanians must go through obscene amounts of sugar every day for all the sweet tea that always seem to be at hand.











These pretty pink flowers seem to be the only greenery in abundance in this deforestated and dry corner of the world. Very poisonous. Not even the goats eat them.












Jordan is not the easiest place for photography. Very hard and flat light for most of the day does not make for good pictures. And we also have sand everywhere in the camera and in the lenses.















Goats goats goats everywhere. They can not need much greenery to survive because there is none.













Stopping for a tea break in a Beduine tent. Notice how the old lady and the girl in the back is obviously enjoying speaking with someone on the mobile very much. They are using the mobile belonging to the guy with the donkey that came to visit. There is mobile coverage everywhere in Jordan.













Here an old man also gets to say a few words to the person(s) they all were chatting with on the other end.








There are some sand dunes in Wadi Finan and we drove around on them for a while (great fun) in order to find a good spot to pitch our tent for the night. We came across a patch of irrigated water melon fields belonging to a Beduine tribe and tried to find someone we could buy a melon from. When we could not find anyone our driver decided that we would just nick a melon instead saying "Beduins are very hospitable and they would want us to have one anyway". So we nicked one.
However, anyone who have seen the film "Lawrence from Arabia" and know what happen in the scene when a Beduine man is found out while drinking from a well that belong to another tribe understand why we hesitated.
We pitched our tent, put our feet up after a days hiking on a big rug in the shade of the car. All of a sudden the sky went black, it got windy and the temperature dropped. It was just like when it is about to start raining so that was what we thought was happening. To our defense we did actually reflect over the fact that rainfall must be rare events in the desert. And then the sand storm was over us! Cool and a bit intimidating. A LOT of sand, pouring down the sides of the tent like water. We ended up having to break camp very quickly trying not to inhale too much sand and move up in the mountains for the night. We had sand everywhere.












We found a new spot to camp, in the area close to Petra. Notice our small tent below the huge cliff face.















Beautiful rocks. The wind has carved holes and shapes in the soft sand-stone. Pretty coloring as well.



















Very hot during the day but chilly early mornings.