Trips

 

Thurs., 2/9/23 - Jericho, Mount of Temptation, and Bethany

Today was another optional tour and we all signed on. Our bus took us to a cable car (four sets of three 6- to 8-passenger gondolas) for the lift up the Mount of Temptation where Jesus fasted and prayed for 40 nights. At the top station we walked the path up more than 100 steps to the Greek Orthodox Church that houses the cave cut into the limestone where Jesus lived and the rock on which he sat and prayed. (This actually might be true.) The church was originally built in 340 CE and rebuilt by Greece in the 19th c. The icons in the church were brought from Greece. There are cells for 25 monks but only two monks live and pray here now. Herod had another castle on the very top of the mountain called the Doq. “A fortress built by the Seleucids called "Doq" stood at the summit of the mountain. It was captured by the Hasmoneans and it was here that Simon Maccabaeus was murdered by his son-in-law Ptolemy.” (Wikipedia,org) The views to Jericho and the Dead Sea and across to Mt. Nebo, where we stood a year ago, were spectacular. There is a lot of green farmland along the Jordan River.

Mount of Temptation - Greek Orthodox Monastery
Looking down on Tell Es-Sultan from the cable car	Looking down on Tell Es-Sultan from the cable car
Looking down on fields from the cable car	Looking down on agricultural activity from the cable car
Mount of Temptation - Caves	Wall mosaics at the Monastery
Wall mosaics at the Monastery	Greek Orthodox monks
Inside the Greek Orthodox Monastery	Floor mosaics Inside the Greek Orthodox Monastery
Inside the Greek Orthodox Monastery	Animal trails on the ssteep mountainside
Next we went to Hisham’s Palace. Hisham was the Caliph in 742 when the palace was built but it was destroyed in the 749 earthquake that also destroyed Jericho. Hisham’s Palace lay covered in desert sand for 1,000 years. In 1937 archaeologists digging in the area uncovered part of the 839 square meters of mosaic floors. Over nine million little squares in 21 colors created many different geometric designs and we wandered among the large assembly hall, rooms, women’s mosque, baths, swimming pool, and a large mosque. The “largest in the world” mosaic floor in the assembly hall is covered with a structure built by the Japanese to preserve the mosaics and allow visitors to see all of it. It cost $12 million and was completed in 2021. There are twelve large pillars inside the hall and niches or alcoves in the walls for oil lamps to provide light. This is another ancient site with communal toilets. Outside there is an ancient grape press where people stomped the grapes and the juice ran off into vats like cisterns. There are the foundations of many rooms where the workers lived and a well that held water from Elijah’s Spring. Abbasid era houses were added in the 750 to 850s AD and several stables. We walked around it all. Someone with a sense of humor built an 8 foot square replica of Hisham’s Palace and placed it four feet off the ground. You can duck under and stick your head up through one of two holes and look at the inside of the audience hall. We also stuck our heads into the one room museum with a few of the items found at this dig.
Jericho - Hisham's Palace - entrance	Hisham's Palace - Capitals
Hisham's Palace - Carved stucco	Hisham's Palace
Stone window	Mosque
Hisham's Palace - Canopy covering the mosaics
Showing central medalion	Central medalion
Tree of Life mosaic	Carved stucco
Wonderful geometric mosaics	Wonderful geometric mosaics
Rooms	Rooms
	Latrine
Umayyad Grape Press	The Stables
Large model of the palace	Inside the model of the palace
In the museum	In the museum
We headed to Bethany, another crowded, hilly, dirty city. It is partly in region B and partly in C but has a comfortable mix of Christians and Palestinian Muslems. Supposedly the Bible story of Lazarus being risen from the dead took place in Bethany.	Lunch in Bethany
Lunch in Bethany	Lunch in Bethany

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