Chapter 28 - Jordan - Walking Through 2000-Year-Old Villages

From Egypt's Sinai coast, Toto took a ferry across the Gulf of Aqaba in the Red Sea to the port city of Aqaba in the country of Jordan. At this point, I had actually left the continent of Africa and entered the region we call the Middle East. This area is full of history, as it's where our civilization started, at the crossroads of many ancient powers and trade routes.

 

My first stop in the desert country of Jordan was the famous ancient city of Petra. Back around the time of Christ, a community called the Nabataeans lived in this area. They were wealthy for two reasons. First, they knew where all the water was in the desert and had invented ways of capturing and storing it. Second, they were powerful enough to charge tolls or taxes to all the trading caravans that passed through their region. The Middle East is called that because it's halfway between (or in the middle of) Europe and the Far East (or Asia). Two thousand years ago, many traders passed through this region carrying goods back and forth between Asia and Europe, and the Nabateans got to collect from these traders.

 

The city of Petra is in a remote area, so when the Romans conquered the Nabetaeans, the city slowly lost power, and then was abandoned and forgotten. Only the Bedouins (tribes of people who know how to live in the desert) knew of Petra. Then in 1812, a Swiss explorer named Johann Ludwig Burckhardt convinced the Bedouins to take him to the lost city of Petra. To get to the city he, just like me and other tourists today, had to walk down the narrow ravine called the 'Siq,' which means 'the shaft.'

 

As you walk through the Siq, you can see the remnants of the system the Nabetaeans built to capture and move water down to storage tanks, or cisterns, where it could be used by the city of Petra. Today their knowledge is lost, but you can still see the effort and skill they relied on to survive in the desert thousands of years ago.

 

Along the way they also left a kind of billboard on the walls of the sandstone cliffs. Can you see the two camels in this photo?

 

After all this walking, I was excited by the anticipation of what lay at the end of this long ravine. I was not disappointed. As I turned a corner, I could see the sun shining on the top of this building, called The Treasury. Like the churches of Lalibela in Ethiopia (see Chapter 25), the buildings in Petra are carved into the rock.

 

Most of the buildings were tombs for nobles, but the 19th-century Europeans didn't know this. When they saw Petra for the first time, they assumed any building this beautiful must have been used to store money. So they called it "The Treasury" (a treasury is like a bank where the government stores its treasure). They figured that the urn at the top of the building must be full of gold, so they shot their rifles at the urn to break it open. You can still see the bullet holes and the foolish damage they did to the top of the building. Of course they didn't find any gold inside, as the urn was solid sandstone!

 

You might have seen The Treasury building before, if you are a fan of the Indiana Jones movies. Indiana Jones goes into this building to find the Holy Grail in the third movie, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. I can tell you that there's just a big room inside, and not booby traps like in the movie! Here's a picture from the inside of The Treasury taken between the columns.

 

While The Treasury is the most famous, it's not the only building in Petra. The Nabataeans built many, many tombs into the sides of the cliffs, as you can see in this photo. They must have been a wealthy community to be able to afford so many elaborate tombs.

 

Further up the cliff, they carved this monastery out of the yellow sandstone found there. As I stood under the bright, clear blue sky and watched the sun illuminate this gorgeous building until it glowed yellow, I wondered how they were able to carve such a beautiful building into a cliff face so many years ago. They must have been very talented engineers, architects and craftspeople.

From Petra, I drove further north to the lowest point on earth, the Dead Sea, which is 1371 ft (418 meters) below sea level. The only point on the earth lower than this is a deep valley in Antarctica (called the Bentley Subglacial Trench), but it's covered by ice, so we don't consider it truly the lowest point. The Dead Sea lies between the West Bank of Palestine and Israel (on its western shore), and Jordan on its eastern shore.

It's called the "Dead" Sea because it's so salty that no fish or plants live in it--they used to think that nothing lived in it, but scientists today know that tiny bacteria live there, but that's it. Any cuts I had on my body stung from the salt, which hurts when you put it on a wound. Because you float better in salty water than fresh water, I actually floated really high on top of the water, so much so that I could have taken a newspaper into the Dead Sea and read it as I floated without getting it wet.

 

My last stop in Jordan was the ancient Roman city of Jerash. Back in the time of Christ, the Romans were in control of this region, and several large cities became wealthy as Roman trading centers. Jerash was one of those cities, and fortunately its ruins remain today for us to see.

 

Archaeologists have been restoring the temples to Jupiter and other Roman gods (there are lots of these!) as well as the amphitheaters the Romans used for shows. They even had a track where the Romans used to hold chariot races. While I was there, the park rangers re-enacted a chariot race with horses, so I felt like I had stepped back in time.

 

Then, as I walked further down the ancient cobblestone streets the Romans used two thousand years ago, I saw these grooves in the original paving stones. Can you guess what created these grooves? (Double click on the photo to see a larger version.) These ruts in the road stones were made by the many, many chariots and wagons that drove through these streets thousands of years ago. Seeing them up close, especially after watching the chariot race reenactment, really brought the city streets of Jerash alive for me. I suddenly could picture all the Roman and local citizens from the time of Christ walking down this busy street to buy their goods and meet their friends and neighbors. Since I found the Jordanian people to be very friendly, I'm sure the people of that time would have been very nice to me, too.

 

I'm not sure our asphalt roads with strip mall shopping centers and heavy cars will survive two thousand years like the Roman buildings and cobblestoned streets. Do you think two thousand years from now, someone will discover our potholed roads and wonder what life was like for us today?

 

Travel Questions on Jordan:

1. How did Toto travel to Aqaba, Jordan?
2. What is the name of the region where Jordan is located?
   A) the Far East B) Western Europe C) Africa D) the Middle East
3. Name one of the two reasons the Nabataeans were so wealthy two thousand years ago.
4. Why did the European who re-discovered Petra give The Treasury building that name?
5. How did the Europeans try to open the urn at the top of The Treasury, thinking it was full of gold?
6. Which movie had a scene filmed at Petra?
7. Why was Toto able to float so high on the water in the Dead Sea?
8. The Dead Sea is:
   A)The narrowest sea on earth. B) the saltiest place on earth. C) the lowest point on earth. D) the happiest place on earth.
9. Who built the city of Jerash?
10. What created the grooves in the paving stones that Toto saw in Jerash?

Global Nomad Questions on Jordan:

1. Draw a picture of you at either Petra, the Dead Sea, or Jerash in Jordan.
2. Find Jordan on a map. List all the countries that border Jordan. What is the capital city of Jordan?
3. When Toto pulled into the port city of Aqaba, Jordan, he could see four countries from the deck of the boat. What four countries come together in the Gulf of Aqaba?
4. Petra and the Nabataeans are full of history. Do a cybersearch on them and write an essay about what else you learned.
5. The Romans were very powerful in the region around Jerash. In fact, Pontius Pilate was the Roman ruler of the region when Jesus Christ was alive in nearby Israel, and he may have visited Jaresh. Do a cybersearch on the Romans in this region of the Middle East and write an essay on what you learned.
6. One landlocked and mountainous country in southern African has the "highest lowest point" of any country. By this, I mean the lowest point within that country's borders is higher in altitude than any other country's lowest point. Can you do a cybersearch or guess which country that is? I'll give you a hint: it's the only African country that's completely surrounded or contained by only one other country but isn't on any ocean.
   
   Bonus: There are only two other countries that are completely surrounded by only one other country but are not on an ocean or body of water. Can you guess what they are? Hint: They are both in Italy.