Jordan: Mount Nebo (10/26/2023)

Thursday, October 26, 2023

Today we departed the Viking Pharaohs & Pyramids river cruise and began the Jordan post-cruise extension, by flying from Cairo to Amman, Jordan. After arrival in Jordan, we were met by a Viking representative who took care of getting visas for those who needed them. Finally, 33 tour participants boarded a single motor coach: no more spreading throughout the bus for us!

Out first destination was Mount Nebo, where Moses is said
to have seen the Promised Land, before he died

The green spot below is watered by Moses's Spring

I believe the spring itself is in the shadow of the second
roundish dark blot (a large tree) from the top right that has a
shadow to its left; this is one of two places where Moses
is believed to have struck a rock to produce a spring

Allée leading to the Moses Memorial Church

The Book of Love among Nations (2000,
by Vincenzo Bianchi); the monument celebrates
the people of the book. specifically the Jewish,
 Christians and Muslims, who all know
Moses (whose profile can be seen in this view)

Faces appears out from the pages of the book

The pages end of the book includes yet
other books on whose spines are written the
names of ancient writers, philosophers, etc

A rolling stone used to fortify a door of a Byzantine
monastery in the village of Abu Badd was perhaps
meant to bring to mind the stone of the Tomb of Christ

Free time on the mountain top.

Tamiko and Kent with the ironwork memorial
(by Gian Paolo Fantoni) that symbolized Christ
on the Cross, with the serpent Moses
raised up on a pole to heal his people

On a clear day we would more easily see the Dead Sea
(light area just above the dry brown land on the left),
Jericho (perhaps the green/dark lozenge just below the sky
in the center, and Jerusalem (over the horizon on the left)

Moses Memorial Church (2007-2016) is built over
the recovered ruins of earlier churches (4-6C CE),
which featured mosaic floors

Floor mosaic (c 530 CE) of the Diakonikon Baptistery

Man with a zebra and a camel-like giraffe

Hunting a boar

Hunting a bear

A cross-shaped baptismal font

Raised walkways allow visitors to
view the ancient mosaic floors

Sanctuary of the Memorial Church (KSS)

Southern Baptistery (c 597 CE)

A braided cross pattern was laid on the floor of the
side hall in the first memorial church, and is now
on the wall of the Chapel of Theotokos

Mosaic detail (KSS)

A reflected stained glass window in the view
of the sanctuary stained glass

Mount Nebo well

An olive tree planted by Pope John Paul II
during his visit in 2000

Mount Nebo Interpretation Center:

Pottery from the Byzantine to Umayyad Period (5-8C CE)

Household objects from Calcholithic Period
(4000 BCE) to the Iron Age (6C BCE)

Roman pots (1C BCE)

Returning to the motor coach (KSS)

The whole of the Book of the People Monument

Cupressus sempervirens/
Mediterranean Cypress Trees

Olive tree grove

Next: The Dead Sea.