Apr 14 - Umm Qais (Gadara)

First posting for today:

After breakfast, we set off heading north. We climbed steadily until we were back at sea level and then we kept on climbing.

We passed through Amman and at one point, we were near the Syrian border. Ruby assured us that we were 3-4 hours south of where the hostilities were taking place. That was comforting. Along the way, we saw the usual roadside vendors with their fruits and vegetables, and often, flocks of sheep and goats grazing right beside the highway. The landscape got gradually greener as we traveled with lots of grass and crops and bushes. We saw actual forests. Trees are very scarce in Jordan as they were almost all cut down indiscriminately for buildings and for firewood. Trees are now protected and there are huge fines for cutting down a tree without official permission, even if it's diseased or has been damaged by weather. That wouldn't go over well in Canada.

After 3 hours of driving, we reached our destination of Umm Qais (also spelled Umm Qays), a town in northern Jordan principally known for its proximity to the ruins of the ancient Gadara, also a former bishopric and present Latin Catholic titular see.

Gadara was a member of the Decapolis. The Decapolis (meaning Ten Cities in Greek) was a group of ten cities on the eastern frontier of the Roman Empire. The cities were grouped together because of their language, culture, location, and political status, with each functioning as an autonomous city-state. Though sometimes described as a "league" of cities, it is now believed that they were never formally organized as a political unit. The Decapolis was a center of Greek and Roman culture in a region which was otherwise ancient Semitic-speaking peoples (Nabataeans, Arameans, and Judeans). In the time of the Emperor Trajan, the cities were placed into the provinces of Syria and Arabia Petraea; after a later reorganization several cities were placed in Syria Palaestina and later Palaestina Secunda. Most of the Decapolis region is located in modern-day Jordan, but Damascus is in Syria and Hippos and Scythopolis are in Israel.

The names of the traditional Ten Cities of the Decapolis come from the Roman historian Pliny the Elder in his Natural History. They are:

Gerasa (Jerash) in Jordan
Scythopolis (Beth-Shean) in Palestine, the only city west of the Jordan River
Hippos (Al Huson) (Hippus or Sussita) in Syria (Golan Heights)
Gadara (Umm Qais) in Jordan
Pella (West of Irbid) in Jordan
Philadelphia, modern day Amman, the capital of Jordan
Capitolias, also Dion, today Beit Ras in Jordan
Canatha (Qanawat) in Syria
Raphana in Jordan
Damascus, the capital of modern Syria

The New Testament gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke mention that the Decapolis region was a location of the ministry of Jesus. According to Matthew 4:23-25 the Decapolis was one of the areas from which Jesus drew his multitude of disciples, attracted by his "healing all kinds of sickness". The Decapolis was one of the few regions where Jesus travelled in which Gentiles (people who are not Jewish) were in the majority: most of Jesus' ministry focused on teaching to Jews.

In the first century, Jesus is said to have driven demons out of a man and into some swine "in the country of the Gadarenes" or "country of the Gerasenes", which has often been associated with Gadara. A story set in the "territory of the Gadarenes", probably referring to the area around Gadara, appears in the Gospel of Matthew, VIII 28-34. It describes an encounter between Jesus and two men "possessed by demons"; Jesus exorcises the demons, driving them into a nearby herd of pigs, which then run "down the steep place into the sea”, evidently intended to refer to the Sea of Galilee.

Gadara continued to be an important town within the Eastern Roman Empire, and was long the seat of a Christian bishop. With the conquest of the Arabs, following the Battle of Yarmouk in 636 it came under Muslim rule. Around 747 it was largely destroyed by an earthquake, and was abandoned.

Gadara was interesting to see, but the experience was marred somewhat by all the vendors (adults and children alike) hawking their souvenirs and drinks and balloons and horse rides. It created rather a cheap carnival atmosphere in a very historically-significant place.

We saw something very disturbing as we were getting on the bus to leave Umm Qais. As it was Saturday, the end of the Jordanian weekend, many families had come out for the day for picnics in the area. We saw about 50 people - men, women, children and babies - getting into the back of a huge trailer being pulled by a truck. No windows, no seats, no seat belts. Incredible unsafe. Just a few minutes later, a car came by us with an open sun roof and two young girls standing up and on the back seat and having a fine but terribly unsafe time. We've seen young children bouncing around in cars untethered or hanging out the windows as the cars whiz around at crazy speeds weaving in and out of traffic. The automotive safety standards that are so ingrained in our society now don't seem so draconian now.Read more