5-17-15. Northwest Jordan
In what is becoming something of a theme for this trip, today was ultimately satisfying but absolutely exhausting. I set out early from Jerash for my first destination: the city of Umm Qais, the ancient and biblical Gadara. Unsure of how to reach the highway from my hotel, I enlisted the aid of the manager, a genial older gentleman with plenty of time on hands (I’m fairly sure that I am currently the hotel’s only guest). He proceeded to give me a dazzlingly intricate series of directions, enlivened by such landmarks as “the big hole in the road.” After getting him to draw a map, I managed to find the highway in record time, coasted contentedly for twenty kilometers along a smooth highway through beautiful hill country – and then ran into the traffic apocalypse that is Irbid. Jordan’s third-largest city, Irbid is notorious (my guidebook assures me) for her congested and ill-marked streets. I had assumed that this would not affect me, as I was driving on a highway; but that highway was soon absorbed by the city, and devolved into a congested four-lane nightmare of buzzing roundabouts, screeching horns, and unmarked turns. I had also assumed that at least the signs indicating the direction of Umm Qais, prominent along the highway leading into the city, would continue inside the city. They did not. Only after nearly an hour of bumper to bumper mayhem and at least a half-dozen near collisions did I finally fight my way clear of the city and discover the correct road to my destination.
Umm Qais was worth at least some of this trouble. In the Hellenistic and Roman periods, Gadara was a substantial city, known for producing a number of noted philosophers and other men of culture. Once it became Christian, the city was best known for the miracle of the swine (when Jesus is said to have transferred demons from a pair of madmen to a passing group of pigs). Ruined by earthquake and regional demographic shifts, it was deserted from late antiquity until the nineteenth century, when a small village grew up on the ancient acropolis. The juxtaposition of these stone cottages with the imposing basalt ruins of the Classical city contributes to the site’s charm; but the real reason for visiting Gadara is the view. The city is located very close to Jordan’s frontiers with Syria and Israel, and sits only four miles west of, but more than a thousand feet above, the valley of the river Jordan. From the north edge of the ruins, perched on the lip of a vast natural amphitheater, one can see the shimmering Sea of Galilee lapping the white buildings of Tiberias; the vast upthrust bulk of the Golan Heights, brooding over the lower hills by the sea; and the yawning gorge of the Yarmuk River, with the plains of Syria beyond.
After all this, the ruins themselves were somewhat anticlimactic. Highlights included a small theater constructed entirely of black basalt, a splendid colonnaded avenue nearly a mile long, and the ruins of a large Byzantine basilica near the supposed site of the miracle of the swine.
It was near this last site that a hundred-pound flagstone flipped up as I put my weight on it, cracking into my shin and pinning my foot. I fell forward, grasping at the only convenient handhold, which turned out to be a thorn tree. Biting back curses, I tore my right hand loose and levered the stone away, which fortunately had left my calf and foot with nothing worse than some nasty bruises. Limping to a nearby rock, I sat to work the worst of the thorns from my bleeding hand and, when the pain in my leg subsided, continued a short distance along the road to the basilica, hoping to rest for a moment in the shade of the well-preserved crypt. It was not to be. As I descended the steps into the antechamber, I became aware of a loud murmur, and noticed winged shapes flitting through the half-light. Removing my sunglasses, I discovered that every surface of the crypt was covered with hundreds of wasps. Backing slowly up the stairs, I settled for the shade of a nearby olive tree, where I promptly sat in cow dung. At least I had something to distract me from my cold and sunburn…
The universe having apparently had its fill of tormenting me for the afternoon, the rest of my time in Gadara passed without incident, and I could walk without serious pain by the time I returned to my car. My second destination was the Decapolis city of Pella, located in the Jordan River valley about forty kilometers south of Gadara. The drive (despite many military checkpoints) was relatively pleasant, and often quite scenic. As I gradually descended into the Jordan Valley, the temperature and humidity increased steadily, reaching hothouse levels by the time I reached the shadeless site of Pella.
At first glance, and indeed at a second or third, Pella was a not a prepossessing site, largely because it remains almost wholly unexcavated. Only a few trenches have been sunk into the barren tell of shard-laced earth that dominates the site – but these have turned up evidence of thousands of years of human occupation, with finds as diverse as a Canaanite temple and a Mamluk mosque. A large late antique church in the valley below, however, constitutes virtually the only standing ruin. I hiked for a little while on the rocky slopes of the hill facing the tell across the wadi, which was honeycombed with Roman and Byzantine tombs. The mid-afternoon heat was too intense to make extended exploration comfortable, however, and I soon picked my way back over the tell to my car.
Despite my best efforts, the trip back to Jerash was another adventure, which involved run-ins with a herd of goats, trucks drifting into my lane, and a highway closure that necessitated a brief detour through a construction zone. I returned to my hotel exhausted, to discover that my plumbing no longer worked. Changing my room again (the third time now at this hotel), I was moved to a pleasant suite with a broken air conditioner and dirty sheets. Having finally gotten these problems redressed, I sat on my balcony as the sun set, trying to tease the last thorns out of my hand.