Umm Ar-Rasas and Al-Lahun

Since my last couple of posts and our trip to Wadi Mujib last weekend, we spent the week enjoying playdates, the park, and staying mostly at home. Chris did a little Arabic tutoring and that put Jake and I out of the house for the morning. We had a breakfast date at Crumz and then headed to the park across the street. Last night (Thursday), Chris and I went to Bonitas for date night. It's an Italian tapas restaurant and we enjoyed some Shrimp, Salmon, Sausage, Spinach, and a few other items on the tapas menu. It was a nice night.

Yesterday, we got up and spent the day touring some archeological sites about an hour and a half from Amman. Jon Bess was our tour guide again this weekend, generously giving up his last weekend in Jordan to chauffeur the Baldwins around Jordan.

First we went to Umm Ar-Rasas, an archeological site, which started as a Roman Military Camp and grew to become a town from the 5th Century that has not been excavated very thoroughly. It contains remains from the Roman, Bysantine, and Early Islamic periods (end of 3rd-9th Centuries AD). The site has 16 churches, some with well preserved mosaic floors, particularly Church of Saint Stephen with its representation of towns in the region.

Also noteworthy mosaics were found in The Church of the Lions and The Church of Bishop Sergius.

 It's amazing that these structures have survived over the years. These arches seem to be predominant among the many ruins we have visited, surviving earthquakes and many years of existence. It seems that this design is very structurally sound. This particular set of ruins at Umm Ar-Rasas sits on a fault line and about every 100 years an earthquake hits. Apparently, it's been about 89 years since the last major earthquake in this are, so another is due pretty soon.

 This is the very intact mosaic floor on the Church of Saint Stephens. Absolutely amazing that it can survive this amount of time.

This is a mosaic on the floor of the Church of the Lions. They have the floors of this church covered with sand bags to protect the mosaics until they build an overhead structure to protect the remains of the church.

 Jake standing in the entrance to the Church of the Lions.

Then we went to Al-Lahun, the ruins of a Moabite village and a view point of Jordan's "Grand Canyon."

 The Palette House.

 Roof Stones of the Pillar House.

 Scarab House.

 Jon Bess on the rocks of Jordan's "Grand Canyon"

 The wadi (or canyon) to the right of this picture is Wadi Mujib. We hiked up to a waterfall through Wadi Mujib last weekend from the other direction.

 Chris and Jon standing above the Grand Canyon

Today we got groceries, went to the park, and also got to have dinner with Mark Hollis, Chris's former boss from Ft. Benning. It was good to see him, visiting from Israel.