Florencia and the Romans( and the pagans, and the Greeks)

Well I failed to cross the Jordan River!


BUT

I was close. 

So much to say! I think this weekend calls for several separate posts... 
My school days consisted of many hours in church- private boarding school of Methodist denomination( initially)- many hours spent singing hymns and reading  from the bible- I think it fair to say that I am pretty familiar with biblical tales and such. 
This weekend was all about these very places- there was a some humn about Joshua and the walls of Jericho- I saw the earliest known carved figurine in the museum atop the Citadel and it was from Jericho where Neoliths had lived for a very long time......
The land is old in stories and in culture. The times gone are those that are imparted in the christian bible-  and all who pa\assed through left their mark- the  Egyptians, the Nabateans, Romans, Greeks, Turks.... all made a mark that seemed to want to echo down through time , like Ozymandias -

My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;

Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

But the majesty of the empires has not been denied- it stands still, monumental in its reminders of colossal and powerful worlds.There is no meekness in the columns, there is no weakness in the towering granite It was designed to stand and to remain powerful in the visual world.

But it is only parts of these places.

I marvelled at the engineering  at Jerash- columns built to withstand earthquakes and supporting large rectangular stones that would sing, when the earth vibrated, warning of things to come; the music stones that were rhymically pounded, the visual architecture that sang of power and grandeur; the m

oonstones and semiprecious stons planted in the walls of the souk so that when the sun shone the reflected light would dance amid a fountain in the front......

These were indeed inspiring.

The citadel that stands above Amman in ancient- built firstly upon a pagan site then gradually accommodating each new wave that crossed into Jordan- the stories have been left- and it is the a museum of enormous fascination - my next post will speak of this.

I leave you with the images