2012年3月31日 星期六

Jordan on my mind

MOSES DID NOT need Specsavers, according to a cynical fellow traveller as we stood on Mount Nebo in Jordan where the great prophet saw not only the Promised Land but also as far as the Mediterranean, an impossibility for mere mortals like ourselves.

Standing in a landscape which has remained virtually unchanged for millennia, we were the ones who needed all the visual aids available to take in the breathtaking views over the desert.

On our coach ride we had passed small settlements and ragged Bedouin encampments with their herds of goats and donkeys. The only colour to break the monotony of the landscape was that of the bright mustard flowers.

At Madaba, a short drive away, the workers who used more than two million mosaic pieces to make what is thought to be the earliest map of the Holy Land probably needed glasses by the time they finished it in AD 560. The mosaic, housed in St George’s Church, is one of the great treasures of not only Jordan, but of the world.

This is but one of the amazing sights in this extraordinary country, where habitations have been identified from as far back as half a million years ago and where the first permanent villages of stone and mudbrick houses date to 8,000 BC.

This region was a crossroads between the ancient civilization of Egypt to the west and Mesopotamia to the east. In the first millennium BC, there were several small kingdoms here,This page provides information about 'werkzeugbaus;Silicone moldmaking Rubber, with the Edomites ruling the south of the country, the Ammonites controlling the area around the capital Amman, once known as Philadelphia, and the Kingdom of Gilead, in the north.If you have a kidneystone,

The Arab Nabataeans set up their power base in southern Jordan at the end of the first millennium BC. Its capital was Petra, which finally succumbed to the Romans in the early 2nd century AD. The Romans controlled Jordan for several centuries until the Byzantine Empire,Full color plasticcard printing and manufacturing services. headquartered in Constantinople, took over for about 400 years, bringing Christianity to the region. In the seventh century, it became one of the heartlands of the Arab Islamic Empire – before the crusaders came along to complicate everything.

The Jordanians eventually got rid of their Ottoman rulers in a revolt which began in 1916, and the country became a protectorate of the British after the first World War. The British left in 1946 and the independent Hashemite Kingdom has been in place since then. The British influence is everywhere: in the English shop signs and the fact most Jordanians speak perfect English. They are a courteous and welcoming people and it is by far the most relaxed Arab country I have visited. Ease of travel is helped by the fact that the Jordanian dinar has a value similar to that of the euro.

But back to the sights. Our first night was spent in the lowest spot on earth, at the Marriott Resort and Spa. A two-mile drive from the capital,China professional plasticmoulds, it is 1,312ft below sea level, on the shores of the Dead Sea. We ate Italian food while looking across the sea at the West Bank and the lights of Jerusalem in the distance, in balmy evening temperatures of around 18 degrees. In the morning, there were mud bath and mud pack treats for those who cared to have them.

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