2 June 2015: Jericho & Jerusalem

2 June 2015

Jericho

Jericho, a town in the West Bank, is one of the earliest continuous settlements in the world, dating perhaps from ca. 9000 BCE. According to the biblical account, it became the first town attacked by the Israelites under Joshua after they crossed the Jordan River. Later, Herod the Great established a winter residence in Jericho.

Jericho (أريحا).

Jericho became a winter resort after the British mandate over Palestine was established in the early 1920s. It was incorporated into Jordan in 1949. Two enormous camps of Palestinian refugees, formed in Jericho after 1948, were dispersed in the aftermath of the Six-Day War of 1967 that resulted in the Israeli occupation of the city. Jericho was evacuated by Israeli forces and turned over to Palestinian administration following the 1993 Oslo Accords.

Khirbat al-Mafjar (Qasr Hisham)

Khirbat al-Mafjar. Carved detail.

Khirbat al-Mafjar (flowing-water ruins), attributed to Caliph Hisham ibn 'Abd al-Malik, is located approximately 5 km north of Jericho. Dimitri Baramki excavated the site from 1934 to 1948. The main components of the palatial complex include palace (qasr), audience hall with a thermal bath, mosque, and monumental fountain (for site plan see http://www.jerichomafjarproject.org/site-setting/full-site-plan).

Palace (Qasr)

Qasr. View from the southeast.

Qasr. East entrance.

Qasr. Inside the east entrance. The fallen hoods of the niches are now resting on the benches parallel to the entrance passegaway.

Qasr. Central courtyard.

The palace had two stories. Some of the rooms on the upper floor were painted.

Qasr. Stairs leading to living quarters.

Khirbat al-Mafjar Museum. Reproductions of the painted plaster fragments that had fallen from the upper floor of the qasr.

The palace was equipped with an underground cool room that is now closed to visitors, because the floor is covered with mosaics.

Stairs leading to the underground cool room.

Sculpted detail of the large fountain in the forecourt of the palace.

Audience Hall

To the north of the palace (qasr) is a large audience hall (main hall) that includes a reception room (diwan), water pool, and bath installations.

Sculpted niches in the main hall.

Diwan (reception room). Northwest corner of the main hall.

Water pool. South side of the main hall.

Bath installations to the north of the main hall.

The University of Chicago (Donald Whitcomb) and the Department of Antiquities investigated the north estate area between 2010 and 2014. (In April 2015, I had the pleasure to present a paper at the Annual Meeting of the American Research Center in Egypt in the panel chaired by Dr. Whitcomb.)

Khirbat al-Mafjar. Umayyad wine press in the north estate. The crushing floor with white mosaic floor and stone base for a screw press in the middle.

Khirbat al-Mafjar. Umayyad wine press in the north estate. Settling pit and one of two vats.

Khirbat al-Mafjar. Abbasid mosque in the north estate. The mihrab niche indicates the direction of qibla. The floor was covered with reused burnt brick tiles.

Further reading:

Taha, Hamdan and Donald Whitcomb. The Mosaics of Khirbet el-Mafjar: Hisham's Palace. Chicago: The Oriental Institute, 2015.

http://www.jerichomafjarproject.org/

Jerusalem

After visiting Khirbat al-Mafjar, Tareq and I went to Jerusalem. On the way there, we saw some of the fortress-like Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

Palestine. On the road from Jericho to Jerusalem.

We only had a couple of hours in Jerusalem, but it was worth it. The views from the Mount of Olives of the Temple Mount and the surrounding areas were breathtaking.

View from the Mount of Olives.

Jewish cemetery.

Garden of Gethsemane at the foot of the Mount of Olives. According to tradition, this was the scene of Christ's agony and betrayal.

After descending from the Mount of Olives, we headed towards the Old City.

Golden Gate in Jerusalem's Old City walls.

Damascus Gate in Jerusalem's Old City walls. Sun burnt, disheveled, and very happy.

Jerusalem's Old City market.

T-shirts for sale in Jerusalem's Old City market. My favorite is the one with the Google search for Israel -- did you mean: Palestine?

Armenian Catholic Patriarchate in Jerusalem's Old City.

The 1915 Armenian genocide memorial at the Armenian Catholic Patriarchate in Jerusalem's Old City.

Dome of the Rock. This is where the guards turned me around.

The Holy Sepulchre was our last major stop for the day.

Main entrance to the Holy Sepulchre.

The intricate architecture sculpture of the main entrance to the Holy Sepulchre.

Stone of Anointing in the Holy Sepulchre.

The Holy Sepulchre. Aedicule.

After a brief but marvelous time in al-Quds (Jerusalem), we took a cab back to the border and then a bus to cross the Allenby Bridge to Jordan.

Tareq and I were the last people crossing the Allenby Bridge before the border closing for the day.

1 June 2015: Iraq al-Amir & Qasr al-Abd

1 June 2015

Iraq al-Amir (Caves of the Prince)

Iraq al-Amir.

The site's name derives from the nearby cave system. Two caves feature the Hebrew inscription TBWH (Tobiah) that connects this place with the Tobiad dynasty mentioned in the Old Testament. The Tobiad family were supporters of the Ptolemies. When Hyrcanus of the Tobiads returned from Egypt at the end of the 3rd or in the early 2nd century BCE, he built a palace called Tyros. Today the palace is known as Qasr al-Abd.

Iraq al-Amir. Modern village on the right. Stairs leading to the caves on the left.

Cave entrance. Hebrew inscription on the right.

The scale of this cave is impressive.

Qasr al-Abd (Fortress of the Servant)

Qasr al-Abd.

The focal point of Iraq al-Amir is the Hellenistic palace that was part of a large estate. It stood at the center of a walled court, of which little remains. Around it was an irrigated area and artificial lake. The name Qasr al-Abd (Fortress of the Servant) may come from a reference in 2 Nehemiah 10:19 to Tobiah, the servant. The palace building is constructed of massive white limestone blocks.

Qasr al-Abd. East wall.

Qasr al-Abd. West wall.

The exterior of the palace was decorated with relief and architectural sculpture. At ground level, the limestone breccia leopard fountains project from the building's long sides (west and east walls). The upper facade supports lion carvings. The half-column and pilaster capitals are nicely sculpted as well.

Qasr al-Abd. Leopard fountain.

Qasr al-Abd. Lion carving. 

Qasr al-Abd. Half-column and pilaster capitals. North entrance.

The pairs of columns, half-columns, and pilasters frame the north entrance to the palace. The colonnettes are perched on top of the south wall.

Qasr al-Abd. North wall.

Qasr al-Abd. North entrance.

Qasr al-Abd. Interior.

Qasr al-Abd. South wall.

The death of Hyrcanus in 175 BCE may have interrupted the construction of the palace. The fourth-century earthquake afflicted much damage on the building, but French archaeologists restored it in 1980.

Further reading:

Will, Ernest. 'Iraq al-Amir: le chateau du tobiade Hyrcan. Paris: Librairie orientaliste Paul Geuthner, 1991-2005.

Preface

After completing a month-long intense Arabic course at the Jordan Language Academy in Amman, I moved to the Council for British Research in the Levant (CBRL). I am pumped about travel adventures. Yesterday (1 June 2015), I, Marlena, and Tareq visited our first site together, Iraq al-Amir. Today (2 June 2015), Tareq and I are going to see Khirbat al-Mafjar and al-Quds.