Wonderful weaving and other Jordan Off The Beaten Path Tips

Whilst you can buy the work of the Bani Hamida Bedouin weavers in Amman, a visit to their headquarters near Mukawir is another experience entirely. Here you will not only find a huge selection of this wonderful work (the warp-faced flatweave style is uniquely Bedouin), you will also see the great piles of dyed but unwoven wool waiting to be collected - the weavers work in their own homes - and observe a very successful cottage enterprise at work. This is more than just another shopping trip.
Prices reflect the value of the work, which is of the highest quality (eg$75 for a piece 70x55cms)

Posted by leyle

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Phone: 4613081 (Amman)

Continue down the road from the Bani Hamida shop and, rising up in front of you, you will see the strange flat-topped mound of Mukawir, site of Herod the Great's palace of Machaerus, where Salome danced and claimed the head of John the Baptist as her price. Virtually nothing remains to be seen of the palace and the climb to the top is a stiff one, but the views of the Dead Sea and the surrounding countryside are spectacular and the still quiet of the place has a magic all of its own.
The road to Mukawir is signposted off the King's Highway about 20km south of Madaba.

posted by leyle

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Another detour off the King's Highway will bring you to the isolated Byzantine religious complex at Umm-ar-Resas - the most important section of which is housed nowadays in an ugly yellow hangar. Inside, however, are splendid mosaics in amazingly good condition. In the largest of these, scenes of rural and river life are framed by images of the cities of the the West and East banks of the River Jordan, many of whose names are still in use today - Jerusalem, Nablus, Gaza, Madaba, while others, such as modern Kerak and Amman are identifiable by their Roman-era names, Charach Mouba and Philadelphia.

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More land has been opened to archaeologists at Um Ar Rasas and 1' churches have been discovered from the great mosaic period - all of them with magnificent floors. You can't see very much at the moment, these churches are just heaps of stones, but Father Piccirillo of the Franciscan Instititute at Madaba has succeeded in obtaining funds from the Vatican to restore all of them. It is hoped that these churches, which were all destroyed in a major earthquake, escaped the attentions of the "iconoclasts" and that the mosaics will not have been attacked before the destruction of the earthquake.

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Other Contact: Posted by Lulu

Pella, in the north of the Jordan Valley, is a particularly rich archaeological site. From the first settlement - Chalcolithic (4000BC) - man has left his mark here through the Bronze and Iron Ages followed by Greeks, Romans and Byzantines and on into the more recent early Islamic period. While there are no great ruins, there is evidence everywhere of these settlements, but even if you only come for the view and a brief stop at the resthouse, Pella will reward you with its serene beauty and quiet tranquility.

leyle

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Khirbet al Mukhayat is roughly between Madaba and Mount Nebo on a side road; it was originally the village near to the large Byzantine monastery of which the present Mount Nebo church is part of the basilica

There are several churches, mostly pretty ruined. There is a beautiful mosaic in the "Martyrs' Church" of Saints Lot and Procupius but there are also 2 specatcular mosaics in Preacher John's church which are less well known

One of the mosaics was placed above the other one which was completely covered and unknown until the newer one was removed for restoring. The figures on the older mosaic have thus escaped the iconoclasts. These mosaics are very attractive.

To get there you would need to take a taxi or hitch from the main road. The road to Khirbet al Mukhayat turns to the left a couple of kilometers from Madaba when going towards Mount Nebo. It's not very far.

Posted by Lulu

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Website: www.jordanjubilee.com