Amman, better than expected

Not a good night for sleeping, no apparent reason. I told myself that I could leave the tour at any time and go back for a nap. We got on the bus with our new local guide, Samirh, a tall balding man of about 40 with a good sense of humor and the habit of saying “inshallah”, God willing, at the end of statements about the future, and I like that!
We drove about 40 mins to Jerash, a Greco-Roman site to the north, but lower in elevation than Amman. Amman is about 2000 ft. above sea level, and rather cool right now. Jerash is in a valley, where the Greeks tried to construct a typical flat orderly city in between hills. The Romans came along and increased the size, changed the focus of the temples from the “old” greek gods to the newer, shinier Roman gods and built a hippodrome on land fill, which apparently fell off the side of the hill rather quickly.
It has a lovely oval shaped agora, or gathering place, paved in limestone as is the whole city. There is a colonnaded long street, or cardo , with temples, a public well and the ruins of what were small shops. The street boasted an underground sewer complete with man-holes! all stone of course.
In the large theater, there was a local two man band- an upright drum and bagpipes, presumably remnants of the British presence here. It was the birthday of a women in our group, and the plan was to sing Happy Birthday to her in the theater, with the band. As so often happens, plans change. A group of school boys followed us into the theater,noisily jumping and running around on the steep stone seating platforms. Samihr talked to them, and they quieted down. Then the band played Scottish tunes and motioned for our member to come down and join them. I still thought they’d play the birthday song and we’d all sing along, but no. I guess it’s not in their repertoire! We had fun anyway, and continued to see all the sights of Jerash.
It was a cool, grey morning with occasional sunny moments, and I forgot how tired I was. Michelle and I continued to take photos of each other in various spots around the site, and we enjoyed the lovely weather. There was a fascinating place where, some years after the Romans left, the then current occupants tried a very advanced system to re-use the columns littering the site. They constructed a water-powered stone cutting device, using parallel metal saw blades that cut three or four slices at one time through a limestone column. The slices were used as paving stones. But, apparently the blades didn’t last long, the whole thing was abandoned not long after the invention. Evidence of it was clear enough that recently, someone re-built it – not a working replica but it looks great!
By the time we were walking back to our bus, it had suddenly darkened and started to rain. It was lunch time and we enjoyed another really delicious meal, featuring a mixed grill of chunks of grilled lamb, ground seasoned lamb formed into sausages and grilled and really tender flavorful white meat of chicken that had been marinated in yogurt and spices, then grilled. And great babaganoush! We all ate too much, but it was so good!
Our next stop, and where I had planned to make my exit, was a visit to the American Center for Oriental Research, or ACOR. It is an organization dedicated to assisting in the work of archaeology, anthropology and other efforts to link the US with the Middle east through scholarly work.Among other things, they sponsored the analysis of papyrus scrolls found 14 years ago in Petra, but burned and then buried after an earthquake. The results were described as looking like black cigars! One of the local workers hired to dig out the site for archaeologists convinced that there was nothing in the place, noticed that he could see some writing, even on the blackened material. This observant worker set off 14 years of painstaking analysis. We were lucky to be able to meet two of the Finnish archaeologists who have been working on the material for all these years, and we got to see some of it! Black irregular bits of charred paper at first glance, but a more careful look revealed darker black ink on the grayed paper. Not an easy task to pour over this for years and years! I really admire the folks who do this in order to reveal to us aspects of life 2000 years ago.
Back to the hotel. Tomorrow I’m breaking free of the tour and going off in search of art. More later, and photos. I forgot to download them before coming to the lobby to use the (paid) internet connection.
Karen

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