The Kingdom of Jordan was established in 1923. Although its neighbors are Syria, Palestine, Israel, Saudi Arabia and Iraq, Jordan does not consider itself a Middle Eastern country. It is a peaceful land, 93% Muslim and 7% Christian. The size of South Carolina, it has a population of 11 million, 4 million of whom are refugees. The national language is Arabic, but English is taught in the schools beginning with first grade.
The country is 70% desert. Water is limited and finite. It's provided on a schedule. In Amman, you have water available for a few hours once a week. In southern Jordan, it's every 10 days. People plan water-intensive tasks (laundry, bathing, filling the rooftop water tank) around their delivery days. If nothing changes, Jordan will run out of water in about 40 years.
We are in biblical territory. The northern end of the Dead Sea, where our hotel is located, is the traditional site of Sodom and Gomorrah. Mount Nemo, our first stop, is the place from which Moses saw the Promised Land, and tradition says he is buried. It is one of the most sacred sites in Jordan.
Bedouin encampment on Mount Nebo.
The road climbed about 3600 feet from the Dead Sea to the top of Mount Nebo. In Byzantine times, this was a pilgrimage destination and the site of a monastery. The buildings suffered a catastrophic collapse around the 8th century, probably from the earthquake of 749. The site was eventually forgotten. The Franciscans purchased Mount Nebo from Jordan in 1932 for 500 Jordanian dinars, and began excavations.
View west to the Holy Land (aka the West Bank, Israel and Palestine) from the top of Mount Nebo. On the rare clear day, one can see Jericho and the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem.
The Franciscans and archeologists found the remains of monastic cells, tiny adjacent churches and one of the most significant mosaics in Jordan. The Franciscans built a structure called the Moses Sanctuary over the most important artifacts. For the past nine years it's been impossible to see the mosaics due to major restoration work and construction of a new building over the mosaics. We were fortunate, as it just reopened this year.
It looks like a church from the outside, but a small museum on the inside.
This priceless 6th century Byzantine mosaic was used, as were stained glass windows in the Middle Ages, to convey a story to illiterate believers. It was endangered in the 8th century when a campaign against artistic depiction of the human form spread across the region. To protect the mosaic, a wooden floor was laid across it and another mosaic (this one with a geometric design) was laid down atop the original. In addition to deceiving the thought police, the additional layers protected the Byzantine mosaic when the building later collapsed.
The decoy mosaic laid over the original.
A short drive away we visited the Queen Noor Foundation Community Development Program in Madaba. Queen Noor, the last wife and surviving widow of King Hussein, began her foundation in 1985 to address a variety of social issues. Literacy among girls has increased several fold under the auspices of her work, as has employment of women outside the home.
The goal of the Madaba workshop is to preserve the art of mosaic making and to reduce unemployment in the surrounding villages. Men and women are trained for free in a two month program, at which point they are qualified to produce small, relatively simple mosaics. As their skills improve they are free to work at home or the workshop, and sell their works at the workshop store.
The mosaics are assembled upside down on cloth with a water soluble glue, and then carefully inverted (like flipping a cake) onto a framed plaster base. As the cement hardens, the cloth backing is soaked with water and removed. After thorough drying, the finished work is lacquered to protect it and bring out the colors.
After the demonstration, we were turned loose in a large showroom with everything from Trump Tower appropriate mother of pearl furnishings to painted ostrich eggs to intricate mosaics and beautiful pottery. As much as I like looking at handicrafts, I hate this kind of sales environment. Every one of us had a hovering salesperson, offering helpful comments if we so much as glanced at an object, much less touched it.
Mother-of-pearl boudoir set
The St George Greek Orthodox Church in Madaba houses the remains of a 5 x 20 meter (16 x 65 ft) mosaic showing the journey of the Israelites from Egypt to Jerusalem.
The early 6th century mosaic was made of 2 million pieces of stone over 3 years. It's a symbolic map, not geographically accurate or to scale, but key landmarks are certainly recognizable and in the right general directions. (Cartography was not too advanced 1500 years ago, nor were the artisans necessarily educated about geography.) Wide swaths are missing, and outlying segments (no longer connected to the biggest piece) are covered by small carpets.
The Dead Sea is depicted by the slate blue oval at the top center and right. There used to be people in the boat floating on the sea, but during the aforementioned destruction of iconography in the 8th century, the mosaic pieces depicting humans were removed, mixed up and placed back at random. Now they are just formless patches on the boat.
This disproportionately large town represents Jerusalem, whose symbolic importance could not be overstated. On the photo before this one, it occupies 1/3 of the space between the Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. The mosaic detail shows Jerusalem's colonnaded main street; the triangles are roofs of churches.
We walked to a nearby restaurant for a generous lunch of shared mezze plates and roasted chicken.
We headed south on the highway. There's not much to see: sand, occasional homes, phosphate factories (the main industry, after tourism, in southern Jordan) and wind turbines.
This crusader castle, built in 1116, was the first in a series of castles built to control and protect trade routes after the crusaders captured Jerusalem in 1099. Note the juxtoposition of wind turbines on the horizon.
Bedouin kids hanging out near the castle viewpoint.
It was about a 2 1/2 hour drive to Wadi Musa, or Valley of Moses, the hotel dense community outside Petra. Tradition holds that this is where Moses struck the rock to bring forth water in the desert. Moses Spring still runs inside this little building.
We finally checked into our hotel. I accompanied Greg partway down the highway to look for a cache, but turned back after 1/2 mile because it was a long downhill and I wanted to be back at the hotel in time for sunset. As I passed a family sitting in a patch of shade on a corner of pavement, a woman walked over and offered me a cup of tea. They waved me over to sit with them on a big mat. Heck with the sunset - this was much more intriguing! I'm usually very careful about eating or drinking anything in an unfamiliar country but again, courtesy seemed more appropriate than intestinal caution.
They had very little English and my Arabic is limited to a greeting and thank you.. The kids knew some English but were too shy to respond. The patriarch asked how old I was (he was 70, in traditional clothing and head scarf) and we stumbled along from there. His wife is my age; they were there with their three daughters, a son-in-law and a bunch of grandkids who drifted over and back from an adjacent playground. They come here as a family every night. We shared tea and dates and took photos. Greg finally came back up the hill and almost passed by until I called him over. We said our farewells and returned to the hotel.
And we were still in time for sunset. Which did not disappoint.
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