Jerash.7 – An Orientation

Call me anal-retentive or obsessive, but I just hate to throw photos at you that I can’t identify better than just “Jerash.” If these Jerash photos are just lovely visuals for you, then do simply enjoy, and ignore the text. But a few folks have posted comments or written me emails with delight at learning of the existence of this fascinating site. Like me, they’d never heard of it.

I’ve devoted more time now to actually sorting and combing through all my Jerash photos, and decided that I’d like to give you a better orientation. You may not believe it, but I’ve even deleted quite a few photos…and still have a lot left to show you! This city grew during Roman times because there was a local mine, and I think it was on important trade routes that went from Petra northward toward the truly important hub in Damascus. It’s not as massive as Petra – I spent a bit less than three hours there, whereas I spent more than 17 inside Petra.

I’ve decided in this post to show you a map and to orient you a bit more. So far I’ve shown you the southern areas, where you enter the compound now: the grand entry at Hadrian’s Arch, the expansively open and moody Hippodrome, some of the columns and atmosphere of the Lower & Upper temples to Zeus. As you see from the map here, these are all one small corner at the southern end of this ancient city. From the hill of the Zeus temple (behind which is the South Theater), the main path takes you down to the Forum, a vast open oval plaza defined by columns which are largely still quite intact. From the Forum, you walk north into the Cardo Maximus, a long colonnaded street which would have been full of life and vendors, temples and  businesses back in Jerash’s heyday, I suppose. In Jerash.5 I showed you precisely this: the Forum with the Cardo Maximus stretching off through the ancient city to the north and east, and today we’ll show you some of that.

Today that Cardo Maximus main street is full of tourists and tour groups, with the occasional food stall selling Potato-Corn. 😊 (Which I chose not to sample, tempted though I was.) This is where it grew very complicated for me to identify which building I was looking at. In some cases I snapped a photo of the info signs as I took photos. Thus I knew, for example, that clusters of photos taken around the same time as I snapped the signs for the Temple to Artemis, The Cathedral, and the Fountain Court are likely related to those items. You have those to look forward to in future posts – they’re later on the route. Today, we’re orienting you and myself.

I do need to add a caveat, though, that the names I’ve given these photos are likely accurate, but certainly not guaranteed. In cany case, I do hope you enjoy all these Jerash pics and posts. My current plan is try to post the rest of Jerash and Amman before I return for the final swathe of Petra photos. Do add Jordan to your bucket list. And when you go, do plan more than a day in Petra, and  at least a day to explore Jerash and Amman as I did. And get a true printed guidebook before you go – that was one of my very best decisions, and I can recommend Lonely Planet which really helped guide me well in both Petra and Jerash…and also Amman. That evening rainy-day bike stop at the book store the day before I flew out was well worth it! 😊

Last tip: if you really do want to follow this and imagine it as an arm chair virtual visit, then it’s definitely best to view these on a full computer with a large screen in the desktop view. This way, you can easily click on the link for “Jerash” at the bottom of each post (if you’re viewing this on a computer now, it’s right below this – Jerash, then Jordan) — and then you’ll see only the Jerash photos without having to sort through any other series or posts. I do that myself when I need to check what I’ve already shown you. Phones are PERFECT if your goal is just “get a quick sense of what Paul’s been seeing.”  But on a phone you won’t know much detail even if I’ve shared it, because often the answer is visible only on what wordpress calls the “full site,” in a link you’ll find at the very bottom of your phone screen, probably 😊.