More stones

After having to hurry to be on time for the bus, I was on my way to Umm ar-Rasas, a site with remains of military camps and several churches from the Byzantine era. The sun was already high on the clear blue sky when we arrived. Our day was packed, so we hurried along the paths of the site. It was clearly visible that not much excavations had taken place; there were many structures still buried half. The only place that was restored and preserved well were the ruins of the church of St. Stephen. A large roof has been built to shield the mosaic floor from the elements.

Figure 1: View of Umm ar-Rasas, the roof over the mosaic floor clearly visible

The floor itself was amazing. The large area of the floor was completely covered with mosaics that were still in a good state. What was interesting to see were the traces Iconoclasm left. Iconoclasm opposed the depiction of humans and animals. On the image below you can see what is left of a some persons. The tiles making up the original persons have been rearranged in a random way, making the persons unrecognisable.

Figure 2: The results of iconoclasm

Like the day before in Jerash, there were, except for our group, two tourists. Omar, our guide, explained that this was because Jordan is not seen by tourists as a destination on its own. Most tourists travel to Jordan as part of a journey through the whole region, i.e. Syria, Israel, Lebanon, Egypt, but the strife in some of these countries has made this kind of journey impossible.

I briefly mentioned the demonstration effect in the introduction where I said that the host culture takes over aspects of the culture of the visiting tourists.[1] The opposite also happens, as can be seen in our group. Jordan is a conservative country, where people are expected to dress modestly, which everyone does. Also, all of the guys, including me, have bought a keffiyeh - a piece of cloth traditionally worn on the head by the Bedouins - and wear it to protect our head and neck from the scorching sun.

[1] Stephen Williams, Tourism Geography - a new synthesis, 2nd edition, Routledge, 2009