A former place of safety and beyond

  Amman, Jordan
Sunday, June 22, 2008

Last evening was pleasant for all of us, last night was not. There was a problem with one of the circuit breakers and the electricity kept going off in three of the bedrooms, which meant not only no air conditioning, but not even a ceiling fan. My wife and I discovered some years ago when we lived in Provence in the south of France, that in hot climates stone or concrete houses absorb the intense heat during the day, then as the temperature cools in the evening, begin giving that heat back. That explains why in Mediterranean cultures people go to bed very late in the summer: their bedrooms are simply too hot to allow sleep until the middle of the night or later. As we prepared for bed, I rousted around in the corridor, found the circuit breakers and reset the one to our room several times (I didn't realize it controled other rooms as well), but each time the power only stayed on for a few minutes before the breaker broke once again. All that to say we lay on our beds and perspired through much of the night. I woke again about 2:00 on a soaked mattress and decided to try one more time, adding a little prayer for some relief. Thankfully the power stayed on this time and though I didn't want to push my luck with the air conditioner, we at least had the ceiling fan for the rest of the night, which was a big improvement.
 
We "slept in" until about 8:00 and had a 9:00 breakfast back at Hussein's house: hummus, baba ghanooj, some fresh vegetables and pita bread; sweet tea with mint, and fried eggs for those who wished. Around 10:00 we had our Sabbath service in Bible Study format. After David Baker's prayer to open the service, I showed a PowerPoint presentation showing an overview of biblical geography through the timeline of the Bible, including maps and photos. After that, Dave talked about the history of Pella, the place to where, according to Eusebius and other sources, the members of the Church of God in Jerusalem fled before the city was destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD. He talked about the concept of places of safety and how God has applied it through time.
 
By noon the bus was loaded and we were ready to leave. We started up the road to the ruins of Pella. Hussein manages the Pella Rest House up above the archeological site, and with a beautiful plunging view on the Jordan valley. This Rest House was built with USAID money he told us, and he wanted to point out some sites of interest from the beautiful view. He gave us quite an animated account of various elements of the history and archeological finds of Pella. He spoke English with more of an American accent than any other, but we still couldn't understand everything he said. We appreciated his time and good will, and the information we could understand.
 
Leaving the Rest House, we walked through the vestiges of Pella.

In the vestiges of Pella

We saw a recently-discovered Canaanite temple in the process of being excavated.

The Canaanite temple (of Baal) at Pella

It has been identified as a temple of Baal, the enemy "god" of Israel that caused the downfall and death of so many Israelites. We tried to imagine in which section of town the early Church members might have taken refuge, and we took in the impressive views. One thing that was inescapable was the absolutely wilting heat. It had to be over 100 degrees F and it was of course very, very dry. One these days of visits to historical and biblical sites we find we must drink up to a gallon (4 liters) of water each day. It seems sometimes it's just not possible to drink enough water. Our bus is not air conditioned, but at least we can get some airflow when the vehicle starts to move.
 
After about 2 hours' visit at Pella, we reboarded and started south along the Dead Sea road in the Jordan Valley heading toward Amman. At the level of Amman we started climbing. It is quite a climb from the Jordan Valley to the capital city. The elevation changes from 1100 feet (350 m)  below sea level to nearly 3000 feet (900 m) above sea level. That change means a noticeable drop in temperature. We had felt before that Amman was pretty warm, but now, as we rose from the deepest part of the earth, the city temperature felt pleasant and refreshing.
 
We stopped for a sandwich and a soft drink before continuing on to Iraq al-Amir on the outskirts of Amman. It is located in a pleasant green valley with a brook running through it.  We stopped to see the vestiges of a palace that belonged to the Tobiads, an influential family in the land of Ammon. The Bible talks about Tobiah, an Ammonite official or servant who caused a great deal of trouble for Nehemiah while he was trying to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem (Neh.2:10; 13:4-8). This Tobiah was apparently part of the Tobiad family that built this palace in the second century BC.

David Baker in the Tobiad palace at Iraq al-Amir

The structure is impressive for its lion sculpture reliefs along the roof line and for the size of the stone blocks used. They are immense, but rather narrow compared to their length and width. This made the structure less stable and more prone to earthquake damage. It was in fact an earthquake that destroyed the palace.

Before heading back to Amman, we stopped briefly at some caves in the valley walls just above the palace. Some were quite large and seemed to have either feeding troughs or chairs carved in the walls, leading to speculation that they were used either as stables or as festive dining halls.

Exploring the caves at Iraq al-Amir

It seemed to me that the carved stone looked more like places to feed animals, but I'll let the archeologists debate that. Then we returned to Amman to the Larsa hotel once again for an early evening. We need our rest, because tomorrow camp activities begin and we'll start a very busy week.