Day 2: Jerash and Ajloun

Today was incredible. After a mostly full night's rest (a call to prayer at 3:30 a.m. woke some of us), we split up on a bus and van and headed to our first stop of the day: Jerash. Jerash is the most preserved Roman city in the region and includes a hippodrome (no, not an ancient place to keep hippos but a stadium to race chariots), a bath house, two temples--one to Zeus and one to Aphrodite--, and many other structures. One of my favorite things about Jordan is that most of the police are on the outside of archaeological sites around here, so we have free reign to explore wherever we want without someone yelling at us (well, mostly...I'll get to that in a minute). Our dig leader is friends with the leader of an ongoing dig at Jerash, so we were afforded the opportunity to see the current excavations around the site.

While walking through a site, a man selling flutes approached me and became mesmorized with the bandana that I was wearing around my head. He quickly took off his hat, one that says, "Italia" and asked me if I would trade. I was a bit confused but gladly accepted the trade. I am guessing that bandanas are rare around here, due to the fact that most people wear what is called a Kafiyeh--I will explain this more once I purchase one tomorrow.

After a couple of hours at Jerash and a very nice lunch, we headed to our next stop of the day: Ajloun. Ajloun was a Arabic castle, built in the style of the crusaders, to defend against the Crusaders invasion (two Crusader castles are in close proximity to it). Again, li

ke at Jerash, there is not security in the site, so we were able to explore wherever we wanted. Our freedom lead us to climb over a small wooden fence and also around a small blockade to get to the highest point of the castle. A few of us set on the edge and looked out over the city, imagining what it must have been like defending a castle on such a high hill. Our professors, however, upon seeing us, must have imagined what it would be like (both for us and for their careers) if one of us fell over the edge. After a sound yelling, we scurried down the wall and back into the confines of the tourist area.

The day is not quite over. It is only about 7 p.m. here. In 30 minutes, we are heading to dinner and then have the rest of the night free. Eating has become one of my favorite past-times here. Tomorrow we explore Amman (the town in which we are staying this week), which in the ancient world was known as Philadelphia (the book of Revelations contains a letter to the Philadelphians in either chapter 3 or 4). On Tuesday we head to the Dead Sea and to Mount Nebo (where Moses supposedly died). I will try to post some pictures on Facebook as soon as I can.

Brad