The promised land

After visiting Petra we travelled up the King's Way, visiting Kerak Castle and the incredible floor mosaics of Madaba. Kerak Castle was our first stop of the day. As you approach Kerak, you're greeted by the striking silhouette of its Crusader castle towering over the surrounding Wadi Mujib Valley.

The castle was first built during the Crusader era in 1142 by Pagan the Butler, a Crusader lord from France. It was initially constructed as a small fortification to protect the area from Muslim forces. Over time, it grew into a much larger structure with multiple towers and walls designed to protect the city from attack.

Our group spent more than an hour exploring its numerous crumbling ramparts and dark maze of stone-vaulted halls and passageways. Hopefully, the images below give you a feel for the scale of this massive structure. I pulled the final image from the internet as all of the summit profiles I took from the bus were motion blurred.

Madaba proved to be an unexpected highlight. Its claim to fame is a series of stunning floor mosaics preserved throughout the town. The most famous of these is on the floor of St George's Chapel, an early Byzantine church sitting in the middle of town. 

The chapel floor includes a mosaic map of the Holy Lands, with a particular focus on Jerusalem. The Madaba Map as it's known, is the world's oldest known geographic floor mosaic. The first image below shows the Nile River delta. In the middle image, Jerusalem is represented by the oval section in the lower right, while the Dead Sea sits in the top right with the River Jordan flowing into it (Unfortunately, the sea is out of focus.).

Our group was given a rather brief, and all too hasty, tour of the main chapel before going for lunch. However, I was determined to see more of Madaba's mosaics. I decided to skip lunch and walked to a nearby museum called, oddly enough, the Archeological Park. The detour was well worth it.

The museum displays mosaics from a 6th-Century Byzantine villa that once stood in the same location, along with mosaics recovered from other sites around town. There was hardly anyone there when I walked in the door. A departing visitor recommended tipping the curator for an extra excursion. I followed their advice. After a little baksheesh exchanged hands, the friendly man took me on a personal tour of the site, including a close-up view of several impressive mosaics behind locked gates.

We finished our long day of travel with a stop at Mount Nebo. Here you can see the Dead Sea shimmering in the distance with the Jordan Valley disappearing out into a dusty haze. It's a surreal experience to stand where Moses stood surveying the same vista he saw 3000 years ago.

Mount Nebo is the place where Moses was granted a view of the Promised Land by the Lord before his death. Hence, as you'd expect, the ridge is crowned by an old chapel and a rather sculptural metallic cross. The chapel, while relatively modest, contained another series of impressive floor mosaics. 

I was surprised to see how many African animals were depicted. The menagerie included ostriches, antelopes, zebras, and other exotic creatures. It was another reminder of how Palestine has long been at the crossroads of human history

Follow this link as we take a dip in the Dead Sea.