Moses, Monuments and Mosaics – A Journey Through Jordan
The Queen Alia International Airport lies about 30km south of Amman. I picked up the rental car, which was conveniently located inside the terminal and headed south to Madaba, the Mosaic City. After reading a number of travel reviews, I had decided to book the first two nights of my explorations in Jordan in Madaba rather than in the capital city, and found that I had made a sensible decision. It may be just a quirk of mine, but I have found that GPS does not work well in many places outside the U.S. and Europe, and trying to read a road map while driving in unfamiliar cities with lots of one way streets amid massive traffic is, to say the least, quite stressful, and I try to avoid that stress whenever possible. Driving between places on highways or especially on local roads can be a great deal of fun as I can find places that aren’t in any of the guidebooks and meet people I would otherwise not come in contact with, but driving in crowded major cities is an entirely different experience. In some places, like in Europe, it is easiest to take public transportation between major centers, but in others, including most in the Middle East, it is impossible to do so as the buses run irregularly and not on a schedule that fits my trip plans and trains often do not exist. Jordan is an example of a country that is best explored with a rental car, as long as one avoids Amman. The Jordanian government has spent a great deal on road and highway infrastructure and the roads are among the best in the region. Signage to the major tourist sites of Jerash, Madaba, Mt. Nebo, the Dead Sea, Petra, and Aqaba is clearly marked and they are easy to locate. The drive from the International Airport to Madaba only takes about 45 minutes. The center of Madaba has most of the important sites and is easily navigable on foot. The hotel had a parking lot nearby, so the car was safe, while I could explore the town’s archeological areas without having to worry about driving or parking in an unfamiliar city.
Madaba became famous after the 6th C “Madaba Map” mosaic of the Holy Land, including Jerusalem was uncovered during the reconstruction of what is now the Church of St. George in 1884. The floor mosaic was the oldest map of the region and shows the extent of what was probably the ancient bishopric and neighboring areas. The map of Jerusalem clearly shows the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and the Cardo Maximus, the main road through the city build by Hadrian and his successors after the destruction of Jerusalem due to the failed Bar Kochba Revolt in 136 CE. Madaba’s archeological sites are primarily from the 2-3rd C Roman Era and the 5-6th C Byzantine times. The small local museum also has some earlier Moabite artifacts, but the real treasures of Madaba lie in the mosaics. They are found on the floors of the houses in the archeological park and in the floors of some of the ancient churches. There is only a replica of the map in St. George’s today, but the church itself is a visual delight with its modern wooden iconostasis and brightly painted columns and apse, and elegant golden candelabras. The Christian community in Madaba is quite active and there are a number of churches in the center of town. On the edge of the old city lies one that is not in use anymore, but is an artistic delight, the Church of the Apostles. There is a caretaker at the site, which is easily overlooked as it at first appears to be a derelict building, who for a few JODs will let one in. The floors in the various sections of the probably 6th C church are filled with floral and animal motive mosaics. In the center of what would have been the nave is a beautiful medallion shaped Thalassa, the pre-Greek goddess of the sea. Her imagery appears in a number of mosaics in Madaba, but the one in the Church of the Apostles is the largest and best preserved. The inscription around the medallion states: “O Lord God who has made the heavens and the earth, give life to Anastasius, to Thomas, to Theodore and to Salamanios, who has made this.” Pagan Greek and Roman imagery were popular themes in Byzantine artistic works throughout this region. From the earlier tradition also came the idea of illustrating cities as queens or goddesses, and another of the common Madaba images is of Madaba, Gregoria and Rome depicted as crowned goddesses of fertility and luck.
Well before the Romans, other conquerors had come into this region. One, with only a staff, a few members of his family, and a rag-tag group of followers that had been walking the region for years, was Moses. The biblical legend relates that he saw the ‘Promised Land’ from the top of Mt. Nebo, which lies only a short 9 km drive from Madaba. A sign on the top of the 800 m high mountain states that “…Nebo was allotted to the tribe of Reuben (Num 32-38) although it was listed among the cities of the land of Madaba on the high plateau of Moab in Isaiah 15:2 and Jeremiah 48:22.” Strife came early to the region as attested to by a 9th C BCE stele found in nearby Dhiban constructed by King Mesha that says, “’Then Kemosh” said to me: “Go, take Nebo from Israel! I went during the night. I fought against it from the break of dawn to midday. I took it and killed all of it, seven thousand men and boys, besides women and girls and pregnant women, because I had dedicated it to Ashtar Kemosh. I carried off from there the vessels of IHWH and dragged them before Kemosh.”’ (sign on Mt. Nebo). There is some confusion as to whether Ashtar Kemosh is one goddess, the main goddess of the Moabites, or whether this is a combination name for the goddess Ashtar (Ishtar or Astarte) and the main Moabite god Kemosh (Chemosh), but the implications are clear; the King removed the Israelites and their god from the land and dedicated it to his god/gods. Later still, as the Eastern Roman Empire became the Byzantium, in the 4th C a three-apsed church was built on the western peak of Siyagha, the highest point of Mt. Nebo. Shortly thereafter, Madaba mosaic floors were added to the church and baptistery.
From Mt. Nebo, today’s visitor can see across the fairly desolate Jordan Valley to the Dead Sea, Jericho, and Jerusalem. The sandy landscape is dotted only by an occasional tree or shrub with the deep blue Dead Sea in the background to the left and a small strip of green along the Jordan River in the middle. The barren landscape around the Colorado River near Yuma, AZ is similar, and yet more colorful with richer earth tones than the view from Mt. Nebo, which, at least in early June, is parched desert.
The road from Madaba to Mt. Nebo continues on down the other side of the mountain to a crossroads where one can either go south to the Dead Sea resorts or north to the baptismal site, Beyond the Bethany. I head north. After having seen the Jordanian baptismal site from the Israeli side, I was curious to see the Israeli side from the Jordanian perspective. The area is well organized, with a shuttle bus taking visitors from the main parking lot to the site. Evidence of a former military presence is apparent, but there isn’t the barbed wire that there was on the Israeli side. There are guards, however, and they do have rifles; as there were on the other side of the river. From the bus stop there is a short path that leads first to a nicely remodeled and renovated small Church of St. John with a glistening gold dome, and then down to a rather small three-tiered wooden platform by the muddy brown river. It is quite a contrast to the immaculately kept white stone edifice on the opposite side. On the way back to the bus there is a small detour in the path that leads to what now looks like a small pool with a trickle of a stream feeding it. According to a site plaque, this pool was probably the actual place of the baptism as the Jordan has changed its path over the past two millennia. Remnants of 5th -12th C churches dedicated to the baptism are now under protective decking. Of the four baptismal sites, two on the Israel side, the main one on the Jordanian side and this pool, the most serene was the pool with the rippling waters from the stream. It was here that I could best imagine a divine presence.
I decided to stay another day in Madaba to explore the Dead Sea region. The hotels and resorts on the Sea are incredibly expensive, as is even going down to the beach unless one can find a public spot, which isn’t all that easy. The Dead Sea highway is an excellent road that follows the Jordanian border of the lake from north to south. I only went to about the middle and then turned east and up to the Dead Sea Panorama Complex and Zara Cliff Walk. The views from the Complex are stunning. The lake may have the highest concentration of salinity of any body of water on the planet and be at the lowest level, but its deep blue color set amidst the multihued red-brown-sandy hills and valley is a photographer’s dream. The Complex hosts a restaurant, outdoor amphitheater, conference center – that was clearly not in use – and a small nicely laid out museum dedicated to explaining the geography of the lake and region. The center hosts a number of sustainability projects, from the use of solar energy to the Royal Society for the Conservation of Nature to a Dead Sea Research Venue project. The dedication to environmental issues was apparent in the design of the buildings. Outside and behind the complex is the Zara Cliff Walk, which is only about a 1.4 km, but the views along the way are incredible and the cliffs are quite steep. It wouldn’t be a good thing to stumble and tumble. From the Panorama Complex it is only 28 km via the King Abdullah St. back to Madaba. The drive winds up and down through the mountains and villages and provides a good opportunity to see some of the smaller settlements in the center of country.
Gerasa, or Jarash it’s spelled both ways, was one of the leading cities in antiquity and a main Roman settlement. It is about 48 km north of Amman. As it is one of the best preserved Roman archeological sites, it is a major Jordanian tourist attraction. Other than in Petra and the Dead Sea Resorts, this is where I saw the most foreign tourists. The rather huge archeological area is in the center of the modern town of the same name. The site can’t be missed coming in from the road as it takes up most of the center area. Excavations have uncovered evidence of temples and walls from the beginning of the Iron Age, ca. 1200-1000 BCE, and there is some speculation of earlier settlements, but the Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, and Arabs built over the earlier structures so that confirmation about the earliest inhabitants is as yet unattainable. Specific records of the city don’t start until 63 BCE when Pompey joined Jarash within the Ten Decapolis cities to form trade routes with the Nabataean kingdom of Petra to the south. The city was destroyed by a series of earthquakes in 749 CE, but was still used as a garrison during the Crusades, first by the Arabs, then later by King Baldwin II of Jerusalem, who destroyed the Arab converted Temple of Artemis. The ruins one walks through today are what is left from these interminable struggles over land and religion.
Among the many structures in this vast archeological park are a few that are really quite spectacular. They include, the South Theater with the Colonnaded Street leading to the Northern Gate, the Temple of Zeus overlooking the South Theater, the remains of the Temple of Artemis with its enormous pillars, the Atrium of the Three Churches, the Church of St. Theodore, the Nymphaeum and the various gates/entrance arches. There is also a small, but good, museum on site with artifacts found throughout the region. A visit to Gerasa/Jarash should not be rushed; a full day is really needed to adequately visit the far-flung sections of the city and spend time thinking about the people, who lived, traded and worshipped here, while meandering along the ancient cobblestone pathways lined by 2nd C columns.
From the past to the present, foreigners have come to cities to seek economic mobility. As traders from neighboring nations set up shop in Gerasa, settlers and refugees try to do the same in Amman today. Amman changed after the 1948 war when Palestinian refugees swarmed over the border into the Hashemite Kingdom. The seven hills around Amman became built up with temporary shelters that have become permanent settlements. The numbers are iffy. Differing census reports tell differing stories, but all agree that at a minimum 37% of Amman’s population are foreign nationals. According to the shopkeepers, taxi drivers, hotel staff etc. it is closer to 80% of the population in Amman are refugees, primarily Palestinian and Syrian with a few Egyptians and North Africans. The refugees not listed with the UNRWA (UN Relief and Works Agency), which is the official agency for Palestinian refugee issues or with the UNHCR, do not count in any official census, so the truth may well lie somewhere between the official and subjective numbers. Compounding the issue of obtaining accurate data on the number of Palestinians in Jordan is that fact that Jordan was unique in that it offered full citizenship to the refugees, other than the approximately 120,000 people from the Gaza Strip. What is clear from any visit to the capital city, though, is that the city is massively overcrowded, that the infrastructure is stretched to the breaking point, and that tensions, given the squalid and squashed living conditions among the various groups and rising cost of living due to the recent influx of Syrians, are high. In the 2016 report, the UNHCR states that “93% of Syrian refugees in urban areas in Jordan are living below the poverty line….” According to earlier travel reports, Amman was once a nice place to visit. I cannot support this view. The large influx of refugees from around the region has changed the city. I found driving in the metropolis to be a complete nightmare, and walking in the city dangerous due to the lack of pedestrian facilities. These issues are the same for the people living there as for those visiting. The Citadel, which is the main archeological site in the center of town, was interesting and the view, over the Roman Theater complex and surrounding hills, good, but other than the National Museum, there wasn’t anything in town that enticed me to stay other than the one night. In fact, I couldn’t get on the road again and out of the metropolitan traffic soon enough. My heart goes out to the people who are trying to make their homes and livelihoods in this tangle of streets, alleyways and ram-shackled housing.
The drive from Amman to Petra takes about three hours depending on traffic at the various checkpoints. It is straight down the Kings Highway until the well marked turn off to the right to Petra, one of the wonders of the Ancient World.
I like to get information directly from the source, as it is always interesting to get the perspective of those living in the region rather than simply scholarly accounts, so the following information is from the signs and plaques throughout the Petra Museum at that entrance to the archeological site as well as those in the site.
Petra was built by the Nabataeans, who seem to have come into the region from the Arabian desert sometime after the fall of the Edomite Kingdom, which fell to the Babylonians in 552 BCE. They were first mentioned in documents in the 7th C BCE as enemies of the Assyrians. The height of the Nabataean Kingdom coincided with the height of Gerasa, from about the 1st C BCE to 106 CE, when the last Nabataean king died and the kingdom was absorbed into the Roman Empire. The city had an extensive water system that maintained its survival until earthquakes in both 363 and again in 551 destroyed them. The city was subsequently deserted until the Middle Ages, when Crusaders built a couple of forts as part of their re-created Roman transportation routes. Saladin eventually conquered the Crusaders, and the desert Bedouin remained the last inhabitants of the fallen city. Bedouin still live in the area and my local guide for the evening candlelight procession through the Siq had been born in one the caves not far from the Royal Tombs. He has sixteen children, all of whom are now living and working in professional positions in Amman, and he worries about the future of his traditions with the exodus. The Bedouins in the area are preserving the Nabataean structures, but those traditions are now the source of scholarly interest and not living culture. It would be very sad if the same were to happen to the Bedouins.
Many of the buildings in Petra are mausoleums, temples or churches. There is some speculation that the Great Temple was really an administrative center, but there is no documentation to either prove or disprove this theory. What has been demonstrated, however, is that the Nabataeans merged Hellenic and Egyptian concepts in their funeral practices. They did not build walls to separate the dead from the living the way the Romans and Byzantines did, but rather created terraced gardens separating the tombs from the living. Waterways were constructed to nourish the plants as they cascaded down to the main streets of town. Like the Egyptians, the Nabataeans believed that life on earth was short and life after death was eternal, so they built beautiful tomb monuments for themselves and their families while alive. Some of the inscriptions on the tombs refer to them as ‘byt’lma, which means ‘home of eternity’. Inside the tombs are ‘locali’, graves that are dug into the ground or into a wall. Individuals would be marked with a nefesh (^), which is supposed to represent a person’s soul. These marks are found outside the tombs throughout Petra. There is no specific documentation regarding any of the funeral practices, but excavations have uncovered hearths and broken bits of painted pottery, which leads scholars to suspect that the rituals involved burning incense and breaking bowls or plates after use, much the way they supposedly did in the Catacombs in Alexandria. The Greek tradition of placing a coin in the mouth as payment to cross over into the Afterworld, was also practiced. Similar to both traditions, women would be buried with their jewelry, and clay figures of gods as well as animals were found in the tombs. Archeologists have uncovered three styles of burial. The monumental tombs with elaborate facades, such as those of the Royal Tombs and of the Treasury (which is a tomb and not a bank), shaft tombs like those in Saqqara, and graveyards outside of the city where the bodies, probably of the poor, were simply wrapped and buried in a hole. In the first two, inscriptions warning against entering or damaging the tomb can be found. The head of Medusa was often carved on the façade, much the way she is painted in the Alexandrian Catacombs, to scare away tomb-robbers.
The Nabataeans had their own gods and goddesses, but they often aligned with either Hellenic traditions and or Egyptian traditions. Isis is prominently displayed on the façade of the treasury; although her body is now shot full of bullet holes from vandals believing the Bedouin legend that the Pharaoh left a treasure in the urn behind her. She appears elsewhere throughout Petra along with the indigenous gods Dushara, the supreme god of the sun, who is also affiliated with Ra as well as Zeus, Al-‘Uzza, his consort, who is similar to Aphrodite, and the warrior god Shaya Al Qaum, the protector of the tribes and caravans. Other gods include, Al-Kutba, who like Hermes is the messenger and protector of merchants, and like Thoth responsible for writing and divination; Allat, the goddess of fertility and wisdom, i.e, Isis/Athena; Atargatis, the main goddess of the Syrians; and Manaat/Anaat, who is Fate, i.e. Nemesis. The triad goddesses of Al-‘Uzza, Allat and Manaat were the three pre-Islamic goddesses worshipped at the Kaa’ba in Mecca and throughout Arabia.
The gods of the Nabataeans were first portrayed as baetyls, sacred stone blocks. Over time, geometric shapes in the form of eyes and nose became more noticeably human features. The blocks were left free standing or placed in niches. In the Siq there are a number of such niches said to represent Dushara and Al-‘Uzza. The layout of a temple differed by the god it was dedicated to, but basically followed a Greek model, with a temenos area for worship and an inner sanctuary for the priests. The only freestanding temple that remains today is Qasr al Bint that is dedicated to Dushara. The Temple of the Winged Lions is supposed to be the Temple of Al-‘Uzza. Ad Dier from the 2nd C is supposed to be a monastery. In addition to the Temples, there were sacrificial sites high on the mountaintops. The place of High Sacrifice is up a windy path and is today overseen by a Bedouin woman selling trinkets and sharing stories in German, Italian, French, English and Arabic. I didn’t hear her speak either Japanese or Chinese, but don’t doubt she could negotiate in those languages as well. The view from the Place of High Sacrifice takes in the entire valley and town. By the Byzantine period, a number of churches were built above the center of town on an opposite hill. The site pamphlet says that it is a very difficult walk up to the churches, but that simply isn’t so. If one is fairly fit and has enough water, the 1000 or so steps are easily accomplished in about 45 minutes, even with dodging the ponies. There is no need to misuse the small equines that the hawkers push on tourists.
There are just a couple of main pathways in Petra after one enters through the narrow Siq to arrive at the spectacular pink Treasury. Camel drivers and horse drawn buggy drivers hang out in front of the Treasury to take those who don’t want to walk to the Royal Tombs and around the base of the town. Most of the fun experiencing a site like Petra, however, lies in going off the main trails to the smaller ones up and down the hillsides. It is almost impossible to get lost as there is usually some marking somewhere that leads back to an overview so that one can get re-oriented, but there are a number of dead ends in some of the older ruins in the back and I found I needed to scramble through brush not just once.
Petra is truly an amazing site. It is worth the time to stay longer than a day so that one can experience the candlelight procession at night and have sufficient time to really explore this fascinating necropolis and city during the day. The hotel I stayed in was right outside the entrance gate; it cost about $75 for the night with breakfast, which is more than I usually spend, but found it was well worth it.
From Petra it takes about two hours to get to the scuba capital of Jordan, Aqaba on the Red Sea. Aqaba also has the distinction of being the home of what is considered the first specifically built church in the world. The ruins of the 3rd C church are walking distance from the Ayla, the old port, which is now an archeological site. The church’s foundation is encased in a semi-round about at the end of a strip of high-end hotels. There is a small sign that mentions the early church, but no one is allowed to walk through the ruins, probably because they look too frail. Further down the street is the Aqaba Fort, which was used by the Ottomans until WW1.
The beaches are at the southern end of town and extend 12km to the Saudi border. For divers, Aqaba is supposed to be among the best coral destinations in the world. I had wanted to go scuba diving, but as I walked out from the public beach into the warm water I was surrounded by a multitude of little jellyfish. They were everywhere! Having been stung many times in the past I beat a hasty retreat back to the sand. My one day to swim with the fish amid the famous stone coral was not going to happen. Oh well, it was a nice day to sit under an shady umbrella, look across the sea to the Sinai and up to Israel, and read about the peoples of the region.
Jordan is a relatively small country that is facing incredible infrastructure issues with the influx of refugees from neighboring countries. The tensions and dilemmas this migration foster are most apparent in Amman, which is a real mess. The country, though, is wonderful. It is safe, the historical sites are well preserved, the government is supporting environmentally sustainable practices, and the people are friendly and helpful. The Jordanian government, from my perspective, is doing an excellent job negotiating the various pressures to keep their people as economically and socially well off as possible given the political and financial nightmares of the region. There is only so much a government can do, though, with a rapidly rising population and limited resources. This is a country that can use the money tourists bring, and where tourists will get far more in return by experiencing where Moses walked, the magnificent hills and monuments of Petra and Gerasa, and the incredible mosaics of Madaba. Jordan is worth a visit!
