Day 15 - Wednesday, March 23, 2023 - Jarash and Amman Citadel

 We left the Movenpick Dead Sea at 8:30 for the 1 1/2 hour bus ride to Jarash,

The Roman city of Jarash is one of the 10 Decapolis cities and is considered the Pompeii of the Middle East. At one time it had a population of 30,000 people and covered 17 square km. Only about 20% has been excavated and unfortunately, before it was re-discovered, the "New Jarash" was built over large parts of the ancient city. There is a huge entrance gate built for the visit of Emperor Hadrian in 129CE that leads to the south "Philadelphia" gate of the city. The Roman "Cardo" road passes through the city from the south to north gates. You can see the grooves in the road that were made by the wagon wheels so many years ago! Water was brought via aqueduct from a distant spring and distributed from  a central reservoir to basins along the road. There is a temple to the goddess Artemis who is also mentioned in St. Paul's epistles (or maybe the book of Acts).  There are huge north and south theaters that held thousands of people.

We had lunch at a restaurant featured grilled meats which included traditional bread, salads, grilled chicken, lamb and kabob followed by Turkish coffee. 

Then off to the "Citadel" in Amman. This was called Philadelphia in Roman times and was also one of the Decapolis cities on the eastern frontier of the Roman empire. In biblical times this was the land of the Ammonites. Roman baths, temples and Byzantine churches have been excavated at the top of the mountain which looks down at a large Roman amphitheater.

We are having dinner at the Kempinski hotel and resting before leaving at midnight for our 3:40AM flight to Frankfurt, then to Newark, arriving at 3PM, about 19 hours later.

Overall it was a great trip. Jonathan / Yonatan and Zuhair were very knowledgeable guides and were always happy to answer questions about history, society and culture.

We had a great group of fellow travelers who were without exception friendly and interesting to converse with.

I can be reached at dadler@christwoodstock.org

Hadrian's gate at Jarash

Roman colonnade and cardo

North Theatre

Temple of Zeus and South Theatre

Lunch

Amman amphitheater

Temple of Hercules at Amman Citadel
Fingers of his statue on right - it was 15' tall



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