Petra ~ July 17 & 18

Al-Batra, the Red Rose city carved out of living rock, is a UNESCO World Heritage site and one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World. Petra is truly one of the world’s great archaeological treasures. Built on the edge of Wadi Araba by the Nabateans – Arabs who controlled the strategic trade routes linking the Mediterranean with the Indian Ocean – more than 2200 years ago, the city continued to flourish through the Roman and Byzantine Era but passed into obscurity (except for local Bedouin living there) by the 12 th century and was not “rediscovered” by the West until 1812. Students are quick to associate Petra with Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, a pop culture icon. We arrive mid-morning and along with 100s of others enter through the impressive 1200 m Siq gorge to experience the anticipated chills on first sighting the “Treasury.” Over the course of the afternoon I explore the Royal Tombs, stroll past the Theater, walk along the Colonnaded Street to the Roman Forum recently excavated by Brown University, visit the ACOR project Byzantine Church site, and climb 900 steps to Ad-Dier - the Monastery, and its spectacular views of the Wadi. By the time several of us drift back to the Treasury in the evening we have the place to ourselves and can truly experience the stunning beauty of the now shadowy and mysterious Siq and its carved votive niches and water channels. When the site reopens the next morning a few of us are there to climb to the High Place of Sacrifice returning by the more magisterial western route processional stairways sliced into the rock-faces to provide access to the ritual center to the Colonnaded Street below. As the photos illustrate, my Petra experience exceeded all expectations.

Crusader Castles & DANA Nature Reserve

We are heading south on the modern desert highway paralleling the Hejaz RR built by the Ottoman’s in 1910 to take pilgrims to Mecca, and targeted by T. E. Lawrence’s raids during WW I. First stop, Karak Castle. Built in 1142 by the Crusaders and taken by Saladin in, 1188, the Castle is strategically situated on the ancient north south trade route to the Levant. Although damaged by a series of earthquakes, quarried for local buildings, and partly demolished by settlement advance, the current castle occupies much of the ridge and has a new museum. Contemporary Karak continues to have a high population of Christina Arabs. Shobak Castle, further south, occupies an equally strategic location, but was built earlier than Karak, and remains only partially restored (a romantic ruin).

DANA Nature Reserve (308 sq. kms) is Jordan’s premier eco-tourism project. We are fortunate to have Dr. Zuhair, a professor of Zoology and early Reserve advocate, planner and consultant, on our southern excursion. Zuhair proves to be an amazing resource for our group, patiently answering questions and telling great stories. We arrive in the evening to stay in the old village overlooking Wadi Dana in the shadow of towering sandstone cliffs and spectacular vistas of the desert beyond the Reserve - many members of our group sleep in roof top “tents.” Modern Dana Wadi villagers have relocated to a new housing complex as the old village is the home of the DANA Reserve complex and village houses are converted to hotels and backpacker hostels. Trekking is popular in the Reserve, home to rare species and animals, plants, trees (the 2000 year old Phoenician Cedars), and birds - although I saw few as migrations are seasonal. The villagers keep orchards of black walnuts, grapes, plums, pomegranates, apricots, and raspberries and sell jams in the Reserve gift shop. An early riser, I drink sweet mint tea seated on the rooftop and watch the sun rise as a covey of Mt. Quail move across a bolder covered slope – tranquility and peace after the hectic pace of Amman.

Leaving Amman for 4 days – Headed South! ~ 16 July

Today we head for Southern Jordan stopping first at the Crusader Castle of Karak and Dana Nature Preserve where we spend the night. On Friday we leave early for Petra visiting Shobak Castle in route. We will have the afternoon in Petra, spend the evening then return in the morning before departing at noon for Wadi Rum (“the largest and most magnificent of Jordan’s desert landscapes,” & where Lawrence of Arabia was filmed). Here we will stay at a Bedouin camp. The next day we go to Aqaba on the Red Sea where we will visit sites and have a bit of time to snorkel before returning to Amman on Sunday. A blog update of these events will come after my return.

Yesterday, during our visit at the University of Jordan, we met with the Vice Chancellor and six Academic Deans. The University, founded in 1962, currently has 38,000 students (65% are women, who also represent 80% of the applications received this year) and 1300 faculty members. After our meeting and Q & A with the Deans, we toured the Library, learned about their extensive access to e-books, online databases and automated check-out system, then visited the Heritage Museum and TASOL (Arabic as a second language) Institute. After lunch at Wild Jordan (a USAID funded NGO), we visited Columbia University’s new Global Center for Mideast Scholars and the Queen Rania Teaching Academy. At the Academy we learned about their strategic plan to reform teacher education, classroom instruction, and methodology. Currently much of elementary and secondary education is by rote, classes are large - 60 or more students, segregated by sex - and teachers, although they have university degrees, have no training in teaching their subjects.

Stay tuned for next week's report from southern Jordan and more adventures.

Holy Sites in Jordan ~ July 11

Today we visited some of the religious sites in Jordan via the historic 5,000-year-old King’s Highway, the Jordan River Baptism Site (John baptizing Jesus), Mt. Nebo where a series of churches were constructed to mark the place where it is thought God showed Moses “the promised land” and where he is buried, the city of Madaba with its extraordinary 6th century Byzantine Mosaics and Greek Orthodox Church of St. George were an ancient mosaic map of the holy land is preserved, and lastly, the Dead Sea (see photos). Pilgrimages to these sites have a long and often contested history since control and access has changed over time.

The Jordan River Baptism Site is an interesting case. Prior to the 6 Day War (1967) Jordan shaped much of its new national identity around promoting access to the holiest sites in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam – Jerusalem, the Jordan Valley, and other religious sites. Hundreds of thousands of tourists and pilgrims visited these sites. After the war the baptism site became a closed and mined military zone. The Israelis opened an alternative pilgrimage site at Yardenit on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, and welcomed global pilgrims for years.

After the 1994 peace, the Jordon River area was cleared of mines and archaeologists were able to begin work only to discover that the site where early Christian antiquity churches were erected to mark the holy location was actually on the East Bank of the Jordan River under Jordanian control. The extensive area, about a mile walk from the military check-point, is now filled with new churches and the Jordanian government is working to build the site into a global pilgrimage destination. Pope Benedict during his April 2009 visit to Jordan celebrated mass at the recently completed Catholic Church, thus conferring his imprimatur to site legitimacy. At least five more churches with pilgrimage residences are under construction in the 300 acre area, including Coptic, Armenian, Syrian and Ethiopian churches. The Jordanian site is modest, a wooden platform and baptismal font with clean water, and river access. However, the Jordanian River is reported to be much polluted (note the opaque color in photo) with sewage runoff from the Israeli city of Tiberius.

The Israel Nature and Parks Authority and the Civil Administration responded by building a more elaborate limestone and marble (see photos) structure directly opposite at Qasr al-Yahud on the West Bank. The site opened this spring. When we visited we saw no one there.

The ancient Byzantine church at Mt. Nebo is closed for restoration but a large section of the fine mosaics are displayed and site history is recounted in the museum. The site is under the care of Franciscans who maintain an active church and monastery. The site has been officially named Mt. Nebo/Siyagha. From the platform by the church we are able to see the Dead Sea, Jericho, and, had it been clear, Jerusalem. Pope John Paul dedicated a monument (photo) here to interfaith during the 2000 Jubilee year.

Religion in Jordan

For the next several days our activities are intended to inform us about religious life in Jordan and on Saturday (July 11) we will visit some of the key holy sites. Officially Jordan is a secular nation: Islam the dominant religion. Ninety-two percent of Jordanians are Sunni Muslim. The recorded call to prayer – by the Muezzin - sounds five times a day from mosque minarets around the city, shaping the rhythm of daily life. Friday noon prayers are the most important and all males are expected to attend. There are approximately 150,000 Christians in Jordan (less than 3 % of the population) divided between Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant, and their number continues to decline.

We met with Fr. Nabil D. Haddad, a Uniate Catholic priest, who reminded us that “Jordan is the birthplace of Christianity,” and noted “I am very proud to be an Arab Christian.” After 911 “Arabs and Muslims were victims of a small minority, I felt insulted. I am a Muslim by civilization, my culture is Arab Christian.” Deeply concerned by the increasing tensions and misunderstandings between the Islamic and Christian world, Fr. Haddad founded and serves as Executive Director of the Jordanian Interfaith Coexistence Research Center (JICRC) an NGO. JICRC is dedicated to promoting “coexistence on national and international levels through the establishment of intercultural understanding and communication” (see http://www.coexistencejordan.org/Default.htm and photo). The Amman Message to the Muslim world delivered to the UN in 2004 is worth a read. - http://www.coexistencejordan.org/amman_msg.shtm I am impressed with JICRC and its mission.

We then visited the modern King Abdullah Mosque. Its distinctive blue mosaic dome can be viewed from many points in the city. The mosque is named for King Hussein’s Grandfather, who was assassinated outside the Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem in 1951. King Hussein, 15 at the time, was with him. There is a museum and photographic exhibit dedicated to King Abdullah and the Royal Family. Communal prayer is a Muslim religious obligation. Men and women have separate prayer rooms. The men’s, being much larger, holds 3,000.The women in our group all wore long sleeves and head covering, but were asked to don a black nylon abayua to cover our clothes (photo). All entering the mosque remove their shoes.

On Saturday we go to the Dead Sea, Jordan River and Mt. Nebo – if the weather is clear we will be able to see Jerusalem.

Amman, Jordan ~ July 7

Today, Tuesday, we visited Parliament for a presentation by Sufian Elhassan, Director, Research and Information. Jordan’s legislative procedures - a bicameral National Assembly, appointed Senate and an 110 member Chamber of Deputies elected by universal suffrage to a 4-year term - are embedded in the 1952 Constitution which follows the Belgium model. Elhassan gave us an historical overview in order place the development of the Kingdom’s parliamentary process in context.

Jordan’s creation as a “buffer state” between Israel and Iraq, its west bank Jordan River lands, and the conflicts marking that geopolitical reality, disrupted the 4 year election cycle. After the 1967 war, how were Palestinian Jordanians living under occupation to vote? The increasing strength of the PLO further threatened the state, and in 1974 the Arab Conference meeting in Morocco demanded that Jordan surrender authority of Palestine to the PLO as the “only legitimate Palestinian representative.” Only after Jordan’s final severance with the West Bank in 1988, Elhassan explains, did elections to restore Parliament occur. The most recent 2007 election, Elhassan notes, elected the first women outside the 6 member quota reserved for women. Elhassan took questions and concluded with a brief discussion of current United States – Jordanian relations (King Abdullah & Queen Rania’s April visit to the United States, President Obama’s Cairo address, the US Congress increased appropriations for Jordan, the occasion of the Ambassador’s 4th of July reception), remarking that Jordan has a “love affair” with the United States and wishes that love to be returned.

Wednesday we will have time to work on our curriculum projects, returning to the classroom and a tour of the King Abdullah Mosque on Thursday. Stay “tuned.”

Salalah ~ Muscat ~ Amman, Jordan, July 4-6th

Welcome to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. We arrive on a cool clear evening, Saturday the 4th of July. After the heat of Muscat and the humidity of Salalah the temps in Amman are a welcome relief, highs in the low 80s, lows in 60s. The landscape is as changed as the temperature. Jordan is a mostly arid land, short on water, and 1/3 the size of Oman. The Kingdom (a Constitutional Monarchy) has approximately 7 million people, 2 million living in Amman a busy urban area with lots of traffic. In contrast to Oman there is also more security in evidence.

Sunday morning we resume our Arabic lessons at the AMIDEAST Amman Office. Our Jordanian instructor (photo) expands our Omani conversation lessons by writing in Arabic (left to right), western script, then giving us the English words orally. With little time to study I am struggling, but I am a willing participants and hope to at least be able to talk to taxi drivers and engage in polite greetings. A welcome orientation with Barbara Al Nouri, Country Director, brings us up-to-date on our Jordanian program. After lunch we load into two Hyundai black vans for a city tour.

Modern Amman is built on a site first inhabited around 3500 BCE. Here, in the 3rd century BCE, the Egyptian Ptolemies built a city and named it Philadelphus. The landscape, strategically dominated by twelve hills had a reliable water source, making the site selection understandable. During the 1st century CE Rome rebuilt the site as one of the ten Imperial Decapolis cities naming it Philadelphia. Our first stop in the city center is the restored Roman Theatre, one of the largest in Imperial Rome. Seating 6,000 spectators, it is used for summer entertainments and has two companion museums, one for folklore the other featuring popular traditions. Along the north wall entrance the remains of columns mark the Forum area.

The Citadel, a site occupied from the Bronze and Iron Age then successively rebuilt during Roman, Byzantine, and Umayyad periods, commands the highest point in Amman. The remaining columns of the 1st century CE Roman temple dominate the city skyline. After the obligatory group photo, we navigate our way around trenches and heavy equipment working to create better access to the large site in order to visit the National Archaeological Museum adjacent to the temple complex. Here some of the Qumran Dead Sea Scrolls (copper rolls and papyrus fragments) are displayed as well as statues, busts, pottery, glass, and jewelry waiting to eventually be transferred to the New National Museum under construction. Another Citadel project under Getty foundation support is the partially-restored reception hall of the Umayyad-era palace located in another section (photo).

Back into the vans we drive through Abdoun for a windshield tour past the American Embassy. When the Embassy first relocated in Abdoun there was nothing else in the area we are told. Today it is filled with palatial villas built by wealthy Iraqi and other foreigners after the first Gulf War. Heavily armed Jordanians secure the Embassy exterior walls and U.S. Marines guard the interior. Large signs read NO PHOTOS allowed. The ambassador’s resident is inside the compound. The walls and gates recall a chapter in Thomas Friedman’s book HOT, FLAT AND CROWDED, “Where Birds Don’t Fly,” recounting the new American Embassy in Istanbul and the need to be both secure against hostile intruders while maintaining the United States mission to the host country. In the post-911 world, American Embassy officials and their families as well as other Americans living and working in Amman must navigate between advancing American interests, enhancing relations with the Arab world, and the requirement to secure the environment that makes normal relations possible. As Director Al Al Nouri noted during our orientation, 9/11 changed everything creating categories of “what we did before and what we did after.” Life goes on, as illustrated by the over 500 guests attending the 4th of July celebration on Embassy grounds.

In the evening we have a formal multiple course dinner featuring Jordanian food on the roof garden of the Crown Plaza Hotel. Hotel entry is controlled – steel stanchions protect the parking lot and entrance. July is also the wedding month and many guests were entering the hotel for a wedding – as with airport security all personal belongings are passed through electronic sensors, men and women enter separate lines where they are “patted down.” Since the attack in 2005 these procedures are a part of life in Amman.

Monday following Arabic we drive to the American Center for Oriental Research (ACOR founded 1968). Director Barbara Porter (photo) greets us. ACOR hosts visiting scholars, facilitates research, and engages in archaeological work, among many other things. We learn that the Roman Citadel site was an ACOR project funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Their work follows the Venice Charter - restore only 10% of an excavated site. For example, the two lower drums on the columns of what is thought to be a Temple to Hercules (site photo & ACOR model), represent this commitment. Barbara tells us the site was mostly “robbed out” prior to the 746-747 CE earthquake.

Another recent ACOR/USAID project (1992) is the 450-600 CE Church site at Petra. Fine glass, pottery (Top photo - I am holding a restored bowl found on site), and priceless carbonized manuscripts are being meticulously restored in the ACOR lab (see photo – look like lumps of coal). The papyri have a range with actual date of 535 to 595 CE. We will see the church site while at Petra in two weeks.

We have also had classroom lectures followed by Q & A, on the Hashemites, the Structure of Jordanian Government, Jordan’s relations in the Middle East, Islam, and Women in Islam-Facts and Misconceptions.