Mukawir - a big hill with columns

Mukawir is a big funny-shaped hill that was apparently the site where Salome danced for John the Baptist's head. Someone told me that Israel also claims a different site as the dance hall. The columns that are there now are all clearly brand new. John the Baptist's body is supposedly buried in one of the caves nearby - we say at least 8 nearby caves (including the one photographed below). We did not find one that said "remains here." His head is supposedly in the big mosque in Damascus.

Um al-Rasas Revisited

Um Al-Rasas was among the first sites in Jordan we visited because it was listed as a UNESCO world heritage site. We left wondering why it was listed since at that time the mosaics were covered up. The EU has now built a beautiful visitor center and a covered pavilion over the mosaics. This town was a Roman way-station where Roman soldiers stayed on their way back to Rome. It was destroyed (like Petra and every town within 200 miles by a big earthquake) but many of the arches are still standing.

A terrific Tourist Police officer gave us a tour and at one point, he dug eight inches into the dirt and showed us a mosaic floor that has not yet been excavated but was still brilliantly yellow and red (and 1800 years old)

The protected mosaics were very nice and like the much-visited mosaic in Madaba featured pictures of the nearby cities. Here is the Um al Rasas mosaic showing a picture of Madaba.

King's 10th Anniversary as King

Two weeks ago marked the 10th anniversary of the accension of King Abdullah II to the throne. This was actually celebrated very quietly - there were some ads in the paper and some military bases had colorful banners but that was about it except for new flags.

We went for a drive to visit Um Al Rasas again and every little town we drove through (all of which have a government building) had brand new shiny flags. In Madaba (a big town), the flags were so new that you could still see the creases from where they had been folded in the package.

Month in Pictures - Um Al Jimal

Although today isn't one of them, we have had some nice weekends and we've flipped through our now very worn Rough Guide Jordan to find spots we haven't visited before.

Three weeks ago we headed to Um Al-Jimal. "Mother of the Camel" - named because the town is over a spring so there was food there and people let their camels graze there after the town was abandoned. We were told that a local sheikh has a heard of white camels (my favorite camel color) but even though we saw a lot of Um Al Jimal, we saw no white camels (or any camels).

We did see this massively huge bug.

The archaelogical site was quite large - it had been a town housing thousands at one point and more recently was a camp site for French soldiers during world war I. Now it is empty - there was one tent there so many there is an active archaeologist on site - but no guards and no one at the tourist office to take our entrance fee. We own someone 1 JD ($1.41).

The site is near the city of Mafraq on the Syrian border. When visiting Syria with Dave and Karen we went to Bosra, which is known for its black basalt amphitheater. This town is probably just 10 miles away (due south and across the border) and thus has the same black stone.