Jordan Archives - Page 35 of 37

MEGA-Jordan: Archaeological Sites on the Map

I have lamented before the lack of a good map of Jordan showing the archaeological sites. Today that shortcoming is partially resolved with the unveiling of MEGA-Jordan, an online database of that locates 11,000 archaeological sites on a Google Earth-type interface. The database was created by the Getty Conservation Institute and the World Monuments Fund.

The opening page includes 11 tutorial videos, but if you are interested you should watch them before you enter the site because a bug in the website will prevent you from returning from the map section to the entry page. (You can work around this by opening the site in a different browser.)

From the Associated Press:

Jordan on Tuesday launched the world’s largest online antiquities database, which details every archaeological site in the country and aims to help preserve its treasures. Its creators said the Web platform could be a model for Iraq, where looters have plundered its ancient heritage.
Experts said the Middle Eastern Geodatabase for Antiquities is the first such countrywide system. The site uses Geographic Information System, similar to Google Earth, to map 11,000 registered sites in the country , and a click on each reveals inventories of what they contain and reports on their conditions.
The public can use the material for planning visits. Scholars and inspectors approved by Jordan’s Antiquities can update the information in a user-friendly way for other professionals to follow and for authorities to keep track of threats to the sites.
Jordan hosts a number of World Heritage sites, most famously the 2,000 year-old rose rock city of Petra , but also Umm er-Rassas, a city dating back to the 5th century that features ancient Byzantine churches, and Qasr Amra, an 8th century Islamic castle. It is also dotted with sites dating from the Neolithic Age, through Biblical times to the Crusades.
The $1 million MEGA program was developed in cooperation with Getty Institute of Los Angeles and the New York-based World Monuments Fund.
“Jordan is at the forefront of safeguarding its heritage,” Getty’s director Tim Whalen said at an Amman press conference with antiquities chief Ziad al-Saad unveiling the system.

The story continues here. I tested the site by searching for and quickly finding Tal Jalul, Hesban, and Gadara. The database does not appear to contain entries for the biblical sites of Penuel/Peniel and Mahanaim.

Our gratitude goes to the Getty Conservation Institute and the World Monuments Fund for creating this work and for the country of Jordan for allowing it.

HT: Jack Sasson

Tagged Jordan, Resources

Tomb(s) of Noah

In Lebanon, just northeast of the city of Zahle, there is a small village named Karak Nouh. Karak Nouh is located in the Beqaa at the eastern foot of the Mt. Lebanon range. In a building adjoining the village mosque, there is a long sarcophagus draped in a green cloth. It is claimed this is the tomb of Noah.

Karak Nouh, Lebanon.

Mark Twain wrote about his visit to Karak Nouh in The Innocents Abroad.

Noah’s tomb is built of stone, and is covered with a long stone building. Bucksheesh let us in. The building had to be long, because the grave of the honored old navigator is two hundred and ten feet long itself! It is only about four feet high, though. He must have cast a shadow like a lightning-rod. The proof that this is the genuine spot where Noah was buried can only be doubted by uncommonly incredulous people. The evidence is pretty straight. Shem the son of Noah, was present at the burial, and showed the place to his descendants, who transmitted the knowledge to their descendants, and the lineal descendants of these introduced themselves to us to-day. It was pleasant to make the acquaintance of members of so respectable a family. It was a thing to be proud of. It was the next thing to being acquainted with Noah himself.

There is another tomb of Noah in the city of Cizre, Turkey (pronounced Jizre). Cizre is on the Tigris River, north of the location where Iraq, Turkey, and Syria all meet. To the east is Cudi Dağ, identified as Mt. Ararat in some traditions.

Tomb of Noah, Cizre, Turkey.

Evidently, there is also a shrine to Noah name Hazrat Nuh in Kerak, Jordan. I have not visited this one, nor do I know if there is a tomb associated with the shrine. I believe the shrine is the small, turquoise building at the far left in this photograph. It is located in a cemetery on the northwestern edge of the modern town.

Kerak, Jordan.

Tagged Jordan, Lebanon, Tourism, Turkey

Weekend Roundup

Alexander Schick passes on word that the excavated tunnel is now open that allows you to walk on the 1st-century street from the Pool of Siloam up the City of David to the area of the visitor’s center.

(A previous report about these excavations is here.)

Leen Ritmeyer is in Jordan and has photos of the newly opened baptismal site at “Bethabara.”

Ferrell Jenkins reports that Egyptian authorities are now prohibiting cameras from entering the Valley of the Kings.

The Ohel Yitzchak Synagogue in the Old City of Jerusalem was looted and vandalized during the Jordanian occupation (1948-67), but its renovation has restored some of its former beauty, as you can see in Shmuel Brown’s recent photos.

With the verdict about to be announced in the forgery trial in Jerusalem, Hershel Shanks has written an e-book entitled, James, Brother of Jesus: Forged Antiquities and the Trial of Oded Golan and Robert Deutsch. Shanks believes the James Ossuary inscription was not forged and he plans to release the e-book when the judge issues the verdict. See the sign-up details here.

The eastern Mediterranean is overdue for a big earthquake, says the Jerusalem Post. The area has not had a seven or eight magnitude quake in nearly a millennium. The 1927 tremor was a mere 6.2 on the Richter scale.

The newly re-opened Israel Museum has served half of a million visitors in the last half year.

The LandMinds radio show has interviewed the recently retired Amihai Mazar, reflecting back on the excavations he directed at Tel Qasile, Giloh, Beth Shean, and Tel Rehov.

A Swiss architect is hard at work restoring and protecting the beautiful mosaics of Hisham’s Palace in Jericho. A new excavation began at the site last week and new Russian museum is now open.

The season’s excavations at Tall el-Hammam are wrapping up and the team has posted a couple of videos. The first shows what they have identified as a Middle Bronze temple (with a 10-foot thick wall!) and the second summarizes the finds in the Roman area. They suggest that this was the city of Livias in the Roman-Byzantine period.

HT: Ferrell Jenkins, Roi Brit

Tagged Egypt, Forgery, Jerusalem, Jordan, Weekend Roundup

Shobak Castle To Become Tourist Destination

Most who see this Crusader castle do so only from a distance on their way to Petra. Plans are underway to attract tourists to stop and shop. From the Jordan Times:

European experts and local officials are looking to develop the southern city of Shobak into an emerging tourism destination.
The project, led by the University of Florence in association with the Shobak Municipality and the EU, aims to take advantage of the historical value and natural beauty of the southern town in order to bolster local development, according to organisers.
Situated on the road to the rose-red city of Petra, Shobak is best known for its Crusader castle, once part of a chain of fortresses stretching across Jordan.
However, the castle and town’s Ottoman-era homes are often overlooked by tour groups who shuttle in and out of Wadi Musa to see Petra a few miles away.
Michele Nucciotti, an archaeologist from the University of Florence, which has been working on developing the archaeology of the town over the last several years, said the project aims to introduce the area to tourists.
“Shobak has a tourist and historical value that has been overlooked. Our job is to develop the city and prepare it for the prominence it deserves,” he said, referring to Shobak Castle as one of the best preserved existing crusader castles.
As part of the project, officials will work to enhance facilities in the castle to enable it to accommodate larger numbers of tourists. Restoration experts will also work to renovate Ottoman and Mamluk buildings in the town for some to be converted into small-scale tourism businesses, he added.
[…]
Originally known as Montreal, Shobak Castle was built in the early 12th century by Baldwin I of Jerusalem as a Crusader stronghold of what was then considered “Arabia”, standing at the ancient crossroads between the Gulf of Aqaba, Damascus and Mecca.
After succumbing to a two-year siege by armies led by Salah Addin in 1189, the castle fell into disrepair before being taken over and renovated by the Mamluks in the 14th century.

The full story is here.

Shobak Crusader Castle from east

Tagged Jordan, Tourism

Discoveries at Khirbet al-Mudayna, possible Jahaz

Excavations at Khirbet al-Mudayna (Medeiniyeh) have been slowly and steadily peeling back the history of this large site on the southern side of the Medeba Plateau in Jordan. Some have suggested that the site be identified with Jahaz, the scene of the encounter between the Israelites under Moses and Sihon the Amorite (Num 21:23; Deut 2:32; cf. Judg 11:20; Isa 15:4; Jer 48:34). From Exchange Magazine:

For two decades, Laurier archaeology professor Michèle Daviau has led international teams of scholars and students abroad to uncover the hidden lives of people who existed thousands of years ago.
During her most recent excavation in Jordan, Daviau was astounded by the discovery of a limestone statue and several high-status objects that appear to have been imported from outside the region.
The objects were made from a variety of materials: three small black ware vessels, one with an incised design of triangles, two faience cosmetic containers, two faience bottles, one calcite cosmetic vessel, two alabaster vessels, one fine-grain basalt bowl and a steatite cosmetic mortar were discovered in an ancient house dating back to about 600 BC.
The objects were in the same room as a 40-centimetres statue of a male with red paint preserved on his left leg and his hands. Such finds have no parallels in Jordan although their source may be Egypt or Phoenicia, said Daviau.
“The alabaster and faience objects suggest influence from the two superpowers in the region, Egypt and Assyria, but the dynamics whereby these objects arrived at the site are a mystery,” she said. “They may reflect a period of about 30 or 40 years when Egypt controlled this area.”
The principal sites under excavation by Daviau in the Wadi ath-Thamad area are Khirbat al-Mudayna and the Roman fortress of Zuna. The former is a walled Iron Age town (1,000 to 600 BC) situated on a hill with the Nabataean/early-Roman period settlement (100 BC to 150 AD) at the hill’s base. More than 150 sites that date from the Lower Paleolithic to the Ottoman period have been located in the dig’s 10- by 11-kilometre survey area.

The story continues here. You can read more about the site at BAS’s Find a Dig, learn more about the archaeologist on her university profile page, or check out the Facebook group.

HT: Joe Lauer

Khirbet al-Mudayna on the Wadi ath-Thamad

Tagged Discoveries, Excavations, Jordan

The Kazneh of Petra in the 1940s

The impressive “Treasury” is the first building to greet visitors walking through the Siq. Tucked away from the most direct effects of wind and rain, the Nabatean tomb monument has been well preserved for the last two thousand years.

Date of photograph: between 1940 and 1946

Since that time, the site has been developed and restorations have been made. The Treasury became well-known in Western culture with the release of the third Indiana Jones movie in 1989.

The first Westerner to visit Petra in modern times was Johann Ludwig Burckhardt. Before his visit, he converted to Islam and spent several years living in Syria learning the language. He was only able to enter the site by feigning desire to sacrifice at Aaron’s tomb (1812). He died only a few years later (1817), but his writings were published posthumously (1822). Travels in Syria and the Holy Land describes his visit to Petra and how he hid his notes by sewing them into his clothes. The book is now available for free download at Google Books. A reprint is $40 at Amazon.

The top photo is one of more than 100 photos of Petra included in the Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan volume of The American Colony and Eric Matson Collection (Library of Congress, LC-matpc-04477).

Tagged American Colony Photos, Jordan