Overland to London - Jerusalem

 

Old Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives

Day 63    Sun 27 July          DEAD SEA – JERUSALEM

Departure time: 7.30 am

            The border is around ½hours run from the Dead Sea Swimming Club and the length of time with formalities can vary. We will hire JETT buses (Jordanian) to cross to the Disneyland (Israeli) border post. (Israel was referred to as Disneyland on all correspondence as officially there was no ‘open’ border and other Moslem nations would frown on foreigners visiting Israel. The Israelis co-operated by issuing their visas on a piece of paper which would be collected at the border when we re-crossed into Jordan). Checks on both sides of the Allenby Bridge (over the River Jordan) – named after the British General Allenby who captured Jerusalem from the Turks in World War One – can take time. On the Disneyland border there will be searches on all luggage and once cleared we will take taxis to the Knight’s Palace Hotel in the Old City of Jerusalem, which will be our base for the next few days.

Outside the Damascus Gate, Jerusalem

 Day 64    Mon 28 July                JERUSALEM

    Jerusalem is perhaps the best known and certainly the most controversial city in the World. Jerusalem is the holy city of both Christianity and Judaism and the 3^rd holiest city of Islam (after Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia), and consequently all three religions have laid claim to, and occupied, the city throughout its long and turbulent history. Jerusalem is one of the World’s oldest cities, dating from around 4000 BC when a tribe of Canaanites built a town here. In 1000 BC King David captured the city and under his son Solomon, the Kingdom of Israel reached its peak.

  In the Arab Quarter of Jerusalem  

    After Solomon’s death in 930 BC, the kingdom split into two, Israel and Judah, with Jerusalem being, the capital of the latter. The city was destroyed, first by the Assyrians around 600 BC and again by Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians in 587 BC. This time the inhabitants were taken into captivity in Babylon where they remained until the Persians under Cyrus the Great destroyed Babylon in 538 BC and allowed the Jews to return to Jerusalem. Next came the Macedonians under Alexander the Great who occupied Jerusalem in 332 BC and after his death this part of his Empire, which included all the Middle East and stretched across Persia to India,  fell to his lieutenant Seleucus I Nicator. Greek rule was generally benign until 169 BC when Antiochus IV Epiphanes desecrated the Temple of Solomon, forbidding Jewish religious practices. This led to the Maccabean Revolt in 167 BC followed by several years of guerrilla warfare before the Seleucid Greeks were expelled from Jerusalem and Judea, which was ruled by the Hasmonean dynasty, until Jerusalem was conquered by the Romans in 63 BC.   

       Narrow streets of old Jerusalem             

 Herod the Great rebuilt the Temple of Solomon and it was during his rule that Jesus Christ was born in Bethlehem. Jesus was crucified in Jerusalem around 30 AD and between 66-70 AD there was a major Jewish revolt against Roman rule which was ruthlessly put down by the Roman general Titus, who had the Temple of Solomon completely destroyed except for what is now known as the Wailing Wall. One of the famous actions of this revolt was that of the Zealots, whose last stronghold was Massada, a fortress built on a mountaintop and after resisting the Romans for sometime, the 960 surviving defenders of Massada, according to the Roman historian Josephus,  committed mass suicide rather than surrender to the Romans. Massada has passed into the annals of Jewish nationalism.

After the Bar Kokhba Revolt in 132-5 AD was suppressed by Hadrian, Jerusalem became the Roman colony of Aelia Capitolina and Jews were forbidden enter or live there. The Jewish diaspora dates from this time, although a limited number continued to dwell in the countryside. Thus, no Jews lived inside Jerusalem from this date until after the 6-day War of 1967 when Israeli forces captured the Old City from the Jordanians.

The Dome of the Rock Mosque on Temple Mount, Jerusalem

In the subsequent centuries Jerusalem came under Arab, Crusader, Saracen, Ottoman, Egyptian and finally British rule. In 1099 the Crusaders of the 1^st Crusade established the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem which lasted until 1187 when the city was captured by Saladin. British forces, including troops from Australia, New Zealand and India, led by General  Edmund ‘The Bloody Bull’ Allenby, occupied Jerusalem on 9 December 1917, after which Jerusalem and Palestine became a British Mandate under the terms of the newly formed League of Nations.

On 14 May 1948, the British Mandate in Palestine expired and the present State of Israel was born. After a brief but bloody war, Israeli forces managed to seize control of West Jerusalem, but were foiled in their attempt to occupy the Old City with its religious shrines by Jordan’s British-led Arab Legion. The city remained divided, the Old City remaining in Jordanian hands until captured by Israeli paratroopers (fighting as ground forces) in 1967. Jerusalem now remains the main ‘apple of discord’ between a permanent peace with the Arabs, along with the Palestinian problem, and the decision in the last day or two (of this 1980 tour) by the Israeli Knesset, to formally annex the city and move the capital to East Jerusalem from Tel Aviv, has not helped matters and Prime-Minister Begin could be in for a hard time.

Things to see and do during the free time you have in Jerusalem.

Christian pilgrims carrying a Cross along the Via Dolorosa, Jerusalem

 Follow the way of the Christian pilgrims through the old city by walking the Via Dolorosa, the ‘Way of the Cross’. The Stations (I &II) begin on the site of the Antonia Fortress where Jesus was condemned by Pontius Pilate, was mocked, crowned with thorns and given the cross. The Chapel of the Condemnation and the Chapel of the Flagellation mark the site of these events. The Via Dolorosa proceeds through the city, the stations being marked – Jesus falls for the first time (III),  Jesus meets Mary (IV) Veronica wipes Jesus Face (VI) to Station IX where Jesus falls for the third time. The last stations X-XIV are all within the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, built on the traditional site of Calvary, or Golgotha, the Place of the Skull. Here Jesus is striped of his garments (X), nailed to the Cross (XI), dies on the Cross (XII), body taken from the Cross (XIII) and finally Jesus’ body is laid in the Tomb of Joseph of Arimathea, the Holy Sepulchre of the Church. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is an unimpressive building.

The site of Calvary, or Golgotha, in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem

The site of Calvary was identified, in 326, by Helena, Emperor  Constantine’s mother and he enshrined the site by removing Roman remains and building the first Basilica in 336. This Church was destroyed by the Persians in 614, rebuilt but destroyed again in 1009. Byzantine Emperor Monomachus began reconstruction in 1048 and it was finally completed by the Crusaders in 1149. After the Crusaders were defeated in 1187, Saladin allowed Christians to use the shrine under the condition that the key to the shrine – the right of entry – remained in Moslem hands, which it does to this day - the same family, I believe. The upkeep of the Church is shared among the various Christian sects – Greek Orthodox, Roman Catholics, Armenians, Copts and Ethiopians who do not always seen eye to eye, hence over the years the Church has deteriorated structurally.

Entrance to the Tomb of Christ in the 
Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem

Between 1936-44 the British had to install steel reinforcing to prevent the Church from collapsing. In 1958, the various Religious groups were finally able to agree on a programme of repair.  

    The site of Golgotha is rather gaudily decorated with statuary, icons, gold and silver candelabras and a sleepy Greek Orthodox priest, for a small consideration, will indicate a low altar under which you can stoop to stick your hand into what is supposedly the hole in which the Cross was erected. Another priest will charge you for a votive candle to place in the [empty} Tomb of Jesus – it will be immediately snuffed out when you leave and resold!

The Temple Mount, Mount Moriah,  is the holiest site for both Jews and Moslems. It was upon Mount Moriah, around 2000 BC that Abraham of Ur, patriarch of all the ‘People of the Book’ – Jews, Christians and Moslems - prepared to sacrifice his son Isaac on a flat rock on the summit, until an angel intervened. King David, about a thousand years later purchased the rock off a local farmer who had been using it as a threshing floor. His son, Solomon, built the first temple which held the Ark of the Covenant. This Temple was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon in 587 BC. The second Temple of Solomon was built after the return of the Jews from Babylon and was enlarged and enriched by Herod the Great in the first century BC. This was the  great Temple of Solomon destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD. When the Moslems under Caliph Omar captured Jerusalem in 637, the Caliph was shocked at the amount of rubble and filth on Mt. Moriah. As punishment for neglecting such a holy site, he made the Christian Patriarch Sophronius grovel in the muck. He then set about clearing the site with his own hands and had a wooden mosque built on the site. Caliph Abd el-Malik commissioned the Dome of the Rock Mosque in the late 7^th century. During the Crusades it became a Christian shrine served by the Knights Templars, but after the re-capture of Jerusalem by Saladin, it became a mosque once again. Outside, the Mosque is covered with blue tiles from Persia and the ‘golden’ Dome is actually an aluminium bronze alloy from Italy.The sacred rock within has an indentation, said to be the footprint of Mohammed as he leapt to Heaven.

El Aqsa Mosque on Temple Mount, Jerusalem

The El Aqsa Mosque, built by Walid, son of Caliph Abd el-Malik, is the holiest Islamic shrine outside of Mecca and Medina. ‘El Aqsa’, or ‘distant place’ is mentioned in the Koran in a vision of the ascension of Mohammed, and means being far removed from Mecca. During the Crusades, it was briefly the Palace of the Kings of Jerusalem then the headquarters of the Knights Templars. An interesting relic from this period are the tombs of the assassins of St. Thomas à Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury. Ottoman Emperor Suleiman the Magnificent restored the Mosque in the 16^th century.

The Western, or Wailing Wall. holiest site of Judaism, Jerusalem

The Wailing or, Western, Wall is the holiest Jewish site and is the last remaining section of the Temple of Solomon, destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD. This site returned to Jewish hands after the Six Day War of 1967.

   Yad Vashem, Holocaust Monument    

Mt Zion is the site of King David’s Tomb, one of the holiest sites of Judaism and the site of the Basilica of the Dormiton, the traditional site of the Virgin Mary’s death. It was only after Persians sacked Jerusalem in 614 that Mt Zion was associated with Mary’s death. 

The Mount of Olives, outside the city walls, gives good views of the old city and here are a number of churches associated with the Ascension of the Virgin Mary, as well as the Russian Orthodox Mary Magdalene Church with its onion domes and the old Jewish cemetery.

Garden of Gethsemane is where Jesus underwent the agony in the garden and was arrested after his betrayal by Judas. The so-called Tomb of Mary is also here.

Yad Vashem is a new shrine to the memory of the Jewish holocaust of World War Two where 6,000,000 perished. This is outside the old city and accessible by local bus.This moving exhibition was completed in 1957 and is well worth a visit.

Day 65    Tue 29 July                JERUSALEM

       Today I’ve arranged the hire of a bus and driver to follow the footsteps of Christ to Galilee and the Nazareth area.

Manger Square, Bethlehem

Many of you will probably have, or intend to, visited the Church of the Nativity in Manger Square in Bethlehem and may have followed the path Christ took as he carried his heavy Cross to Golgotha, or visited the Garden of Gethsemane where he was betrayed by Judas Iscariot. 

Old Jericho & the Mount of Temptations, 1980 & 'The Fall of Jericho' by German artist 
Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld 1794-1872

Today’s trip will visit other places connected with the life and preaching of Jesus, as well as places featured in the Old Testament. First stop will be Jericho, on the Israeli-occupied West Bank,  believed to be the world’s oldest continuously inhabited city dating from around 9600 BC and the protective walls of the old city are the world’s oldest. It was these walls that Joshua and his Israelites supposedly shattered by the blowing of trumpets and the Canaanite inhabitants massacred: So the people shouted, and the trumpets blown. As soon as the the people heard the sound of the trumpet, the people raised and great shout, and the walls fell down flat, so that the people went up into the city, every man straight before him, and they took the city. Then they utterly destroyed all in the city, both men and women, young and old, oxen, sheep, and asses, with the edge of the sword.” (Joshua 6:20-21). Overlooking both Biblical and modern Jericho is the Mount of Temptation where Christ fasted for 40 days and from which Satan tempted him with ‘all the kingdoms of the World.

                 Sea of Galilee at Tiberias                

From Jericho we drive on through the disputed Israeli-occupied West Bank, following the River Jordan valley to Lake Tiberias, the Biblical Sea of Galilee. We pass through the town of Tiberias, 100% Jewish as we are now back in Israel, and we will visit the Mount of Beatitudes from where Jesus preached the Sermon on the Mount, then to Caperneum, the ruined town from which Christ held his ministry. Nearby is Tabgha where Christ fed 5000 followers by the breaking of bread and fish. We will stop for lunch and a swim in the Sea of Galilee at Tiberias before climbing out of the Rift Valley to Nazareth, home of Joseph and Mary and the town where Jesus grew up, training as a carpenter under the tutelage of his father. We will visit the Church of the Annunciation on the site of where the Virgin Mary was said to have been visited by Archangel Gabriel who told her she had been chosen, by God, to have his son.

After leaving Nazareth, time permitting, we will call into the ancient Canaanite site of Megiddo, Biblical Armageddon, before driving into the West Bank passing through the ‘Valley of Dancers’ between Samaria and Judaea, where the young men of Shiloh used to come to dance with the daughters of Benjamin. We pass through the Palestinian towns of Nablus and Ramallah. The Arab mayors of both these towns, has their legs blown off in car-bombs earlier this year (1980). We should arrive back in Jerusalem early evening.

Canaanite ruins at Megiddo, the Armageddon of the Book of Revelations

Day 66    Wed 30 July               JERUSALEM

    A free day to further explore Jerusalem, or perhaps visit Tel Aviv or take a tour to the ancient sites of Massada, last stronghold of the Zealots in their war against the Romans in 74AD, and Qumrun, where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found in the late 1940s. Below are a few words about Judaism and Zionism.

Tel Aviv from Jaffa & the ruins on Massada

    Judaism, the religion of the Jews, is the world’s oldest monotheistic religion, the creed of which is based on the concept of a transcendant and omnipotent ‘One True God’, the revelation of His will in the Torah and the special relationship between God and ‘His Chosen People’. The Torah is the Hebrew name for the Law of Moses (the Pentateuch) which was divinely revealed by Moses on Mt Sinai during the Exodus from Egypt. An important influence on Judaism may have been the monotheism of Akhenaten, the ‘heretic’ Pharaoh and father of Tutankamun, who advocated the worship of a single entity – Aten, the solar disc. There are striking similarities between Psalm 104 and Akhenaten’s Hymn to the Sun.

      Ruins at Qumrun, where the Dead      
    Scrolls were found in caves in 1946   

The Talmud is a book containing the civil and canonical laws of the Jews. Judaism is essentially a social and family religion which, more than almost any other, concerns itself with the observances of every aspect of daily life. Details are laid down in the most minute way for the behaviour of the orthodox. The home is the main Jewish institution and Jews cannot surrender their religion. Circumcision takes place 8 days after birth and a boy becomes a man at his Bar Mitzvah at 13. Among festivals are Passover, recalling the Exodus; Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year; and Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. The priest is called a rabbi and the place of worship a synagogue.

          Zionism is the belief in the need to establish an autonomous Jewish home in Palestine which, in its modern form, began with Theodor Herzl (1860-1904), a Hungarian journalist in Vienna who was forced by the Dreyfus case (Alfred Dreyfus was a French Jew and soldier who was unjustly convicted of espionage) and the pogroms in Eastern Europe, to conclude that there was no real safety for the Jewish people until they had a state of their own. These persecutions reached their apogee during the genocide of Hitler’s Nazi regime and th death camps of Europe during World War Two. Today Zionism is supported by the vast majority of Jewish communities everywhere and it is now an active  international force concerned with protecting the welfare and extending in influence of Israel – mainly at the expense of the Palestinians!

Free evening in Jerusalem; perhaps time for a beer ot two at Bob's Bar before returning to the hotel to prepare for an early departure for Jordan tomorrow morning. 

Text & photographs ©Neil Rawlins 

Instagram accounts  @dustonmyfeet     and    @antipodeanneil

My paperbacks and ebooks on my Overland travels in Asia, Europe & Africa in the early 1970s and the experiences of a tour guide on the Asian Overland routes & leading Camel Safaris in Rajasthan in the 1980s are available from Amazon.

Overland to London - Adana via Amman to Dead Sea

 

A farmer using an ancient horse-drawn tribulum  to thresh sesame, near Antakya

Day 58    Tue 22 July          ADANA - ALEPPO

Departure time:   8am              Tach reading  133,042          Distance run:  359 kms

              The distance from Adana to the Syrian border is around 250kms. This area has been disputed territory of the centuries and we will begin to see the remains of both Venetian (for guarding the trade routes) and Crusader castles from now on. Near Iskenderun we cross the plain of Issus where Alexander the Great inflicted a crushing defeat on the Persian armies of Darius III in 333 BC, thus opening the way to the Middle East, Babylonia and Egypt. Iskenderun, also known as Alexandretta, was founded and named after Alexander. Antakya, the last city in Turkey before we cross into Syria, is ancient Antioch and was an important city during the Roman era and is referred to as ‘the cradle of Christianity’. According to the Acts of the Apostles: “... and in Antioch the disciples were for the first time called Christians.” (11:26). It was also the centre of one of the four Crusader states (under Norman rule) in the Middle Ages. The Principality of Antioch flourished from 1098 until finally it was captured by the Egyptian Mamluks in 1268. 

French stamp of the Sandjak of  
Alexandretta during the
Plebiscite of 1939

  Postage stamp of Hatay during   
the Plebiscite of 1939   

 More recently, after World War One, this area, known as Alexandretta to the French and Hatay to the Turks, was part of the French League of Nations Mandate of Syria which lasted from 1923 to 1946. The region was returned to Turkish control after a 1939 plebiscite vote was in favour of Turkey. Syria still lays claim to the Antakya area, and Syrian maps show it as such. 

Sesame is grown around Antakya and if we are lucky we may see a farmer using a horse-drawn tribulum, dating from Roman times, to thresh his crop.

    Hopefully, as we now have Syrian visas, the border crossing will not take too long. Aleppo, or Haleb (to use its Arabic name) is the second city of Syria and is around 50kms from the border. The city is one of the world’s oldest and is believed to date from around 5000 BC, but as it still occupies the same site, very little archaeological excavation has been carried out. The old city is dominated by the citadel, scene of many a furious battle between the Saracens and the Crusaders who never captured the city. (Sadly much of  the city has now been destroyed, particularly during the Battle of Aleppo in 2012-16,  during the recent Syrian Civil War).

    We will be staying tonight at a camping ground just out of Aleppo. Time, after dinner, to enjoy a local wine or a bottle or two of  Al-Chark beer.

          As we are now in an Arab country, Arabic numerals are used more often than European. The number system works on units of ten – the reason why our numeral system is also called the Arabic.

                          0    1       2        3        4        5        6         7        8        9

             ۰  ۱  ۲   ۳   ۴  ۵   ۶   ۷   ۸   ۹

Some numerals do vary slightly from country to country, particularly 3, 4 & 5.

 Day 59    Wed 23 July         ALEPPO – DAMASCUS

Departure time: 8 am            Tach reading 133,401          Distance run: 386 kms

First thing this morning, we will go into Aleppo to shop for the day  and to have a quick look around the souks and, perhaps, walk down to the citadel. From the road this ancient historic citadel looks impressive.

    Old City of Aleppo from the  Citadel     

Unfortunately, due to the state of emergency in Syria, the citadel is closed to the public. (This was what is now known as the 1980 Siege of Aleppo, part of an Islamist Uprising against the Hafez al-Assad Government. The uprising began with a massacre, by members of the Moslem Brotherhood,  of Military Cadets in Aleppo in June 1979, just a few days after I had passed through Aleppo on my previous trip).  Make sure you are carrying your passports, as we could be stopped by soldiers or militia at any time!

Tom will be having the back skylight repaired and then we will head south towards Damascus.  

Road blocks and militia willing, we should make reasonable time to the central Syrian town of Hama, famous for its ‘norias’, the great waterwheels on the Orontes River which have operated here from around the 12^th-13^th centuries, although Roman mosaics found in the area have depicted similar waterwheels. Wooden and mechanical parts have, of course, had to be replaced over the years. 17 of Hama’s original waterwheels have been conserved and two of them are the tallest waterwheels in the world.

These norias (in 1980) are still in operation and supply water from their aqueducts for local irrigation. To quote a line written by the Arab poet Al-Andalousi (with a name like this, he probably came from Moslem Spain – Andalusia) – “They moan and splash their tears as if they fell in love with their own reflected image …” – quoted in the Hama Touristic Guide 1966. Perhaps these great waterwheels aren’t quite as romantic as al-Andalousi made out, but they do make an interesting photo stop.

A 'Whispering Noria' on the Orontes River in Hama, Syria

        From Hama we press on through Homs to the Syrian capital of Damascus, one of the claimants for the world’s oldest, continuously inhabited city. 

We will be staying at a camping ground just out of the city.

 COMMENTS:     It looks like Tom will be having the sky-light fixed yet again! (Maybe it would hold better if you spread that glue – which  the Aussies call vegamite around the edge first!)                                                                     vegamite

                                               ↓

                       Ingredients:  30% floor dust sweepings

                                           30% horse droppings

                                           40% machine grease

1)    Spelling is vegemite

2)   Certain Canucks may not like it for fear of sticking their big mouths together, and improving speling.

3)   Actually ingredients scraped from Carlton United Brewery’s vats

Signed: A Happy Little Vegemite!

Well, I think vegemite is crapp too!

 

Day 60     Thu 24 July                     DAMASCUS

Departure time:  9am

     This morning the bus will drop you all off in Damascus. There is no organised tour arranged for the city of the Omayyad Caliphs, as very little now remains of its former splendour. Damascus does lay claim to being the world’s oldest inhabited city, being mentioned in Assyrian cuneiform clay tablets, in Egyptian hieroglyphic texts and in the Biblical Book of Genesis. The city’s days of splendour came after the death of Mohammed when it became the capital of the Omayyad Caliphs in the 7^th century - Omar was the father-in-law of Mohammed and the second caliph. Damascus became the spiritual and political capital of the Arab Empire until 750 when, after the collapse of the Omayyad dynasty (although the dynasty survived in Spain, ruling from Cordoba until the late Middle Ages), the Abbasids moved the caliphate to Baghdad. The Great Omayyad Mosque and the Azem Palace are the remnants from this age of greatness.

Tomb of John the Baptist,
Great Omayyid Mosque, Damascus

       The Great Omayyad Mosque, in the centre of Damascus, was built between 705 and 715 over the site of the early Christian Basilica of St. John the Baptist’s Head. 

 

John the Baptist is also revered by the Moslems and this mosque is the 4^th holiest in the Islamic world with the

Ananias Restoring the Sight of St Paul,
painting by Pietro da Corttona

belief that it is here that Isa (Jesus) will return ‘at the end of days.’ 

In a garden adjoining the Mosque is the tomb of Saladin, the leading Saracen protagonist of the 3^rd Crusade, whose stories of his battles with the English Crusader King Richard I ‘Cœur de Lion’ and other Crusaders are legendary. Saladin, who occupied Damascus, died in 1195.   

     Also in central Damascus, and of great importance to Christians, is the ‘Street Called Straight’ where St. Paul, then still known as Saul of Tarsus, had his sight restored (after 3 days of blindness) by Ananias and was converted to Christianity:

‘Now there was a disciple at  Damascus named Ananias. The Lord said to him in a vision, “Ananias.” And he said, “Here I am, Lord.” And the Lord said to him, “Rise and go to the street called Straight, and inquire in the house of Judas for a man of Tarsus named Saul; for behold, he is praying, and he has seen a man named Ananias come in and lay his hands on him so that he might regain his sight.” (Acts of the Apostles 9:10-12). 

 

Day 61    Fri 25 July           DAMASCUS – AMMAN

Departure: 8am                 Tach reading:  133,787         Distance run: 210 kms

        We first have a run of only 120kms to the Syrian/Jordanian border near the town of Deraa. Usually all formalities are handled at the Jordanian post of Ramtha. Jordan, named after the Biblical river, is a kingdom, mainly desert, ruled over by King Hussein I since 1953 and a country that has been in the forefront of the news with regards to the Israeli-Palestinian problem.

  Mt Nebo, from where Moses first viewed the    
Promised Land

These lands of present-day Jordan are the Biblical lands of the Ammonites, Moabites and Edomites. It was through here that Moses brought the Israelites during Exodus and on Mt Nebo, south of Amman. He was shown the ‘Promised Land’ by God that he was never destined to enter.  

     South of the border we reached the town of Jerash (ancient Gerasa) , was has some of the most complete Roman ruins still in existence.   Well preserved is the Oval Piazza,  forum, or market place, the street of Corinthian columns, an excellently preserved theatre and  the Temple of Artemis with its ‘rocking columns’. Human remains dating back to 7500 BC have been found in this area, but it was during the Greco-Roman period that ancient Gerasa flourished until large parts were destroyed in an earthquake in the 8th century and it remained relatively unknown to Europeans until the 20th century. Iain Browning, in his book Jerash and the Decopolis describes Jerash as follows: " Jerash is one of the three great classical city sites of the Near East. It is, however, altogether different from Petra and Palmyra. The grandeur of Jerash is tempered by a charm to which one can relate immediately. Here the gods of antiquity presided benignly over the everyday life of the people, and still one can feel this human measure. For above all, Jerash is typical of a prosperous Roman town."

The famous Oval Piazza or Forum at Jerash (ancient Gerasa)

The street of Corinthian Columns in Jerash

    Tonight, we will be staying in a hotel in Amman, capital of Jordan. Amman is also one of the World’s oldest cities, called Rabbath Ammon and first mentioned in the Old Testament, Book of Deuteronomy: “For only Og the king of Bashan was left of the remnant of the Rephaim; behold, his bedstead was a bedstead of iron; is it not in Rabbath of the Ammonites? Nine cubits was its length and four cubits its breadth, according to the common cubit.” (3:11)  That would make his bed 4.12m (13.39ft) long by 1.83m (5.94ft) wide – but then, according to the Bible the Rephaim were an ancient race of giants in Iron Age Israel of which King Og was said to be one of the last survivors. In Roman times Amman was known as Philadelphia.

Day 62 Sat 26 July             AMMAN – DEAD SEA

Departure time: 2 pm                Tach reading:  133,997        Distance run: 68 kms

    Tom and I will be away most of the morning obtaining official authority to cross to the West Bank of the River Jordan and so you will have the morning free in Amman. Besides an archaeological museum, there are the remains of the Amman Citadel, considered to be among the world’s oldest continuously inhabited places with Neolithic period pottery having been found here. There are also Roman, Byzantine and Omayyad ruins on Citadel hill. There is a well-preserved Roman theatre, dating from the 2^nd century and capable of seating 6,000 people, in the centre of town.  Little else remains of ancient Philadelphia. On Jabal Amman, next to the Ministry of Antiquities, is the Rujm Al-Malfouf, the remains of a circular Ammonite watchtower dating from around 1000 BC.

The Roman theatre of ancient Philidelphia, Amman

Preparing to dip below sea level en
route to the Dead Sea

This afternoon, all being well and permits having been obtained, we will descend to the lowest point on the earth’s surface – the Dead Sea with a surface elevation of -430.5m (-1412ft). As the Sea is the lowest point on the earth’s crust, water running into the Dead Sea from the River Jordan, can only escape by way of evaporation, so consequently minerals, particularly salts, remain in the water. Something like 25% of the Sea’s content is salt, compared to about 6% average in the World’s oceans. This makes the waters very buoyant, and a rather interesting bathing experience. A word of warning, do not stick your head under the water and be careful about splashes in your eyes. If you have any cuts, rashes or abrasions, you’ll soon know where they are!!  Tonight we will free camp at the Dead Sea Swimming Club and, by way of a change, there are Dodgem cars at a small funfair nearby. 

 

The Jordanian shore of the Dead Sea

                                                     Needs to get his hormones under control

COMMENTS:                                         ↑

                    “There once lived young Lindsay from Brisbane,

                     Who was often a bit of a pain,

                     After letting down tents – some say he was bent,

                     But we knew he was just inane – and a

                     Smart arse and stupid, and ignorant, and dumb,

                     And bald, and he won’t get any Xmas cards from us ---”

          

text & photographs ©Neil Rawlins 

Instagram accounts  @dustonmyfeet     and    @antipodeanneil

My paperbacks and ebooks on my Overland travels in Asia, Europe & Africa in the early 1970s and the experiences of a tour guide on the Asian Overland routes & leading Camel Safaris in Rajasthan in the 1980s are available from Amazon.

                                               

Overland to London - Göreme

 

Eroded tufa formation in Göreme Valley, Cappadocia

Day 56    Sun 20 July                GÖREME                

Departure time: 9 am                  Tach reading: 132,617      Distance run: 98 kms

      This morning we will set out with guide Hamadi Ege on a tour of the Göreme district of Cappadocia. Hamadi will first take us to the incredible underground city of Kaymaklı. This amazing city with its maze of narrow passageways and hundreds of small rooms was constructed by early Christians fleeing persecution from the various invaders who have come through central Anatolia over the centuries.

The Underground city of Kaymaklı

          A circular stone 'door', Kaymaklı          

This city, along with the sister city Derinkuyu  9 kms away to which it is linked by an underground passage, was capable of supporting over 20,000 people completely underground. Kaymaklı was constructed in 8 levels of which only 5 are open to the public. The passages could be blocked off to intruders by rolling great circular stones across the thoroughfare. These could only be opened from the inside. These two underground cities plus 3 more in Cappadocia have relatively recently been discovered and explored by archaeologists.

The Castle at Uçhisar,

      From Kaymaklı we head to the village of Uçhisar, built in and around a rock formation known as the Castle. There are many ‘fairy chimneys’ in the vicinity,  may of which are still inhabited. We will be able to climb up the Castle for photos. Then to Göreme, the Valley of Churches. This was once the main religious centre of Cappadocia and many painted Byzantine churches remain, some dating back to the Iconoclastic periods (726-843) of the Orthodox Church when, by royal decree of Emperor Leo III the Isaurian, it became a heresy to decorate churches and thus, worship images. The reason for this appears to have been a volcanic eruption of Santorini and the subsequent tsunamis caused great loss of life our the coastal regions of the Byzantine Empire. Emperor Leo interpreted this as being a judgement on the Byzantine Empire by God, and he decided that the use of images had been the catalyst. Many of the Churches of this period are decorated with simple crosses. 

Ruined church in the Göreme Valley

The two best preserved churches in Göreme – Tokalı Kilise (the Church of the Buckle) and Karanlik Kilise (the Dark Church) – are closed for restoration but we can enter the Church of St Barbara, the Church with the Snake, the Church with the Sandals and the Refectory where monks once ate at a long sandstone table. 

 Church of the Maltese Cross, Göreme

In the Church with the Snake (Yilanlı Kilise) is a fine fresco of St. Onuphirus depicted as a half-man with a long beard and half-woman with a fig leaf. One of many legends about the saint say that once he was a frivolous woman who prayed to God to make her unattractive. Her wish was granted, she was given a beard and moustache and lived a secluded life for 70 years in the desert. Many of the frescoes in these churches have been defaced by Moslems who do not believe the representation of the living form, and also by shepherds who throughout the years used the abandoned churches as shelter for their flocks.

    We will have lunch in a rock chimney restaurant then we will go to Zelve, a village among the fairy chimneys that was occupied until 18 years ago when the government moved the inhabitants as rock collapses were making the village dangerous. Now it is preserved as an open-air museum. Zelve is a fascinating collection of tunnels and rooms hewn out of fairy chimneys and eroded tufa cliffs. At the roadside near Zelve are some of the most impressive formations in the Göreme area. After Zelve we will visit a pottery factory in the village of Avanos, famous for pottery and alabaster crafts and also carpet weaving, before we return to Paris Camping.

The Formations at Zelve are transformed by winter snows

     This evening I have arranged an evening meal in the restaurant followed by traditional Cappadocian folk dancing, which has similarities to Greek and Russian folk dancing, which will be followed by copious quantities of the local wine, Efes beer and raki, the Turkish fire-water which is much like ouzo. 

 COMMENTS:                  How’s your coccyx, Robert?

        Quotes of the Day: -

Ken: “We had the 1812 Overture complete with cannons on the bus this morning.”

  Following along on this note,

          Bookseller John added: -   “We’re just mere piccolos compared to a bassoon –                                 what hope have we got?

-       Consult Jack & Meg for a more precise & descriptive details – that is, if they’ve recovered yet!

                                                                   The stirrer of the bus is Ken                                                                                  Little comments he would send                                                                          To all and sundry without a quandary                                                                    Displaying all their dirty laundry.                                                                                                                                    

 Day 57    Mon 21 July          GÖREME – ADANA

Departure time:  8 am         Tach reading: 132,715      Dstance run:  327 kms

The Fairy Chimneys at Ürgüp, Cappadocia

   A relatively short run today of a little over 300 kms, down to the Mediterranean coast at Adana. We will stop first in Ürgüp, the largest town in the Göreme area, where there are some classic examples of Fairy Chimneys complete with intact cappings of stone. After a bit of hill-work we reach the main Kayseri – Adana road where, weather permitting, we can clearly see the volcano Erciyas Daği (3916m) where, according to local legend, St. George confronted and slew the dragon.  St. George was adopted, in the Middle Ages, as the patron saint of England, as well as Catalonia. Georgia, Venice, Genoa and Portugal because he was the personification of the ideals of Christian chivalry. It is interesting to note that he was born in Cappadocia to a Cappadocian Greek father who was a Roman soldier and a Palestinian mother.

The ancient volcano, Erciyas Daği, 3916m, Cappadocia

   After leaving the town of Niğde, we pass through the Taurus Mountains  via the strategic Cilician Gates, through which most of the invaders of Asia Minor have passed, including Alexander the Great and, more recently, the Egyptian Ibrahim Pasha who dynamited a wider path for his artillery.

          Adana, although a relatively uninteresting city, is the 4^th largest in Turkey (after Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir) and the most important port in this part of Turkey.  I had read about Adana in Peter Pinney’s book Dust on My Shoes and his account had not been particularly favourable: “Adana is an evil-smelling city sprawling untidily at the junction of three turbid rivers, a cotton centre set on the cotton plains.”  Adana is now not as bad as Peter Pinney’s late 1940s description. We will stay tonight at the Tourist Camp.

 COMMENTS:     

                                    A voice that would make Slim Dusty shrink 

                                    Especially when raised and full of drink

                                     Kerry! Kerry! Where’s your T-shirt?  

                                     Maybe it got lost, with your last burp

                                     Mouth always gapping, lips wide apart 

                                      Are you just sleeping, or having a fart!

 

text & photographs ©Neil Rawlins 

Instagram accounts  @dustonmyfeet     and    @antipodeanneil

My paperbacks and ebooks on my Overland travels in Asia, Europe & Africa in the early 1970s and the experiences of a tour guide on the Asian Overland routes & leading Camel Safaris in Rajasthan in the 1980s are available from Amazon.