You are invited to join us in a trip to Jordan and Egypt from December 26 through January 6.
We will leave from Philadelphia International Airport on Dec 26 and arrive in Queen Alia International Airport in Jordan at 01:30 am (Dec 28) – We will be met, assisted and transfered to the Manar Hotel for dinner and stay there overnight.
Dec 28: Some leisure time to rest in the morning.
10:30: departure to
discover
Amman’s dominating Citadel and Archeological Museum followed by a visit to the Ampitheater.
Lunch on your own in Amman
Afternoon return to hotel
Dinner and overnight in Amman
Dec 29: Depart to Madaba to discover the Palestine Map at the Saint George Church – continue to Mount Nebo, the final resting place of Moses.
Proceed to the Dead Sea and continue to Petra for dinner and overnight
Madaba
has a very long history stretching from the Neolithic period. The
town of Madaba was once a Moabite border city, mentioned in the
Bible in Numbers 21:30 and Joshua 13:9. Madaba dates from the Middle
Bronze Age.
During its rule by the Roman and Byzantine Empires from the second
to the seventh centuries AD, the city formed part of the Provincia
Arabia set up by the Roman Emperor Trajan to replace the Nabataean
kingdom of Petra.
The first mosaics were
discovered purely by chance during the building of the new permanent
dwellings using squared-up stones from the old monuments. The new
inhabitants of Madaba, made conscious of the importance of the
mosaics by their priests, made sure that they took care of and
preserved all the mosaics that came to light.
The Map of Madaba mosaic was discovered in 1896 and the findings
were published a year later. This discovery drew the attention of
scholars worldwide. It also positively influenced the inhabitants,
who shared the contagious passion of F. Giuseppe Manfredi, to whom
the rediscovery of most of the city's mosaics are owed. Madaba
became known as the "City of Mosaics" in Jordan.
The northern part of the city turned out to be the area containing
the greatest concentration of mosaic monuments. During the
Byzantine-Umayyad period, this northern area, crossed by a
colonnaded Roman road, saw the building of the Church of the Map,
the Hippolytus Mansion, the Church of the Virgin Mary, the Church of
Prophet Elijah with its crypt, the Church of the Holy Martyrs (Al-Khadir),
the Burnt Palace and the Church of the Sunna' family.
The Madaba Mosaic Map is an index map of the region, dating from the
sixth century CE, preserved in the floor of the Greek Orthodox
Basilica of Saint George. With two million pieces of colored stone,
the map depicts hills and valleys, villages and towns in Palestine
and the Nile Delta. The mosaic contains the earliest extant
representation of Byzantine Jerusalem, labeled the "Holy City." The
map provides important details as to its 6th century landmarks, with
the cardo, or central colonnaded street and the Holy Sepulchre
clearly visible. This map is one key in developing scholarly
knowledge about the physical layout of Jerusalem after its
destruction and rebuilding in 70 AD.
Petra is also one of the new
wonders of the world. The Nabateans constructed it as their capital
city around 100 BC.
The site remained unknown to the Western world until 1812, when it
was introduced to the West by Swiss explorer Johann Ludwig
Burckhardt.
Excavations have demonstrated that it was the ability of the Nabataeans to control the water supply that led to the rise of the desert city, in effect creating an artificial oasis. The area is visited by flash floods and archaeological evidence demonstrates the Nabataeans controlled these floods by the use of dams, cisterns and water conduits. These innovations stored water for prolonged periods of drought, and enabled the city to prosper from its sale.
Dec 31: Coach from Petra to Aqaba