More Tall el-Hamman and Visas

The picture is of the upper Tall el-Hamman. To the left the highest point where the kings palace was. In the distance you can see the Judean Hills where ancient Bethal & Ai are, where Abraham and Lot did their deal about who would go where. Directly in front of where I am at the base of the Judean Hills is the city of Jericho, old and new. I hadn't pciked it up before in the biblical text, but the Israelites arrived at Mt Nebo about two years before they crossed the Jordan. They camped on the plains "east of Jordan". As I have mentioned in a previous post the Israelites camped on the lower Tall, I thought for only a night or two, but it was for much of that two year period. So I can imagine Moses and Joshua standing somewhere near where I am, surveying the territory across the Jordan, in particular Jericho. This place makes so much of the Bible become alive in 3D - absolutely love it!

As you can see the Tall is rugged, and very green at the moment. There usually isn't a sign of a green plant, and what there is growing is due to the abudant rain this winter. What is growing is more like salt marsh grass similar to what you see around estuaries in NZ. The ground is very salty, more so on the lower Tall. This morning I helped Helen in the pottery washing "shed" and we were washing pieces of large pottery that had grown salt crystals while buried for 3,000 years. The Dead Sea didn't come up this far, but the chemical analysis of this salt curse is that somehow water from the Dead Sea was dumped over a large area, part of the evidence for the airburst meteor theory as the cause of the destruction of the five cities of the plain of Jordan.

The size of the place, to remind you, is amazing. The upper Tall is a platform 60m above natural ground level and covers about 12 acres, the same size as David's Jerusalem. The lower Tall is 30m lower than the top, meaning the lower Tall is 30m above natural ground level, and covers about another 50 acres. The whole lot is man made and every rock and pebble has been carted in from off site to make the platforms. Then add the 150 million mud bricks that made the outer walls that were 15-20m high and 2.7km around, plus the mud brick walls around the top Tall for another defensive wall, plus the religious and government buildings and housing for 25-30,000 people, you get to understand how all the soil got up there. I found out last week that on the 37 degree slope from the top Tall down to the bottom defensive wall and its towers, the whole slope was sheathed in plastered mud brick to make a smooth surface, hard for attackers to climb and easy to defend. This was one impressive city that, as the evidence is showing and I have seen for myself, was literally ripped off its foundations and smashed. To quote Dr Steve Collins who leads the dig, "The story carries weight with our souls because we perceive it isn’t just a story from the past—it’s the whiff of hell itself in our nostrils." And very literally, down in the ecavations that have reached the destruction layer the smell of burning is very pronounced. One of the dig tee shirts has a good slogan, with a pun - "It takes a Lot to love Sodom". I am going to miss the place. Helen's not.

Today has been a messy day and seven of us are back at the hotel early, while the rest of the team are digging to sun down because of the lost time due to the snow. We have been trying to extend our visa with visits to the 3rd Circle Police Station on Thursday and Saturday, only to find them closed. Today was the last day for us to get the job done so we determined to take the morning off and do it, but somehow we were convinced that it would be better to go with the rest down to the dig site, drop everyone off, and go to one of the Police Stations in the valley, then we could rejoin the dig before lunch. This we attempted. We dropped of a team member at the King Hussein border crossing who was going to Israel for the day. He works for NASA and was going to look at some Israeli project. We went to the first Police Station, a large one near the 47th Jordan Army Battalion Base, only to find that the person was "too busy". We went to the next station. They stopped doing visas two years ago. Then the next one, and to our initial relief they did visas, and we only had to wait 20 minutes for the office to open. Come 10am found out they only did Egyptians and Syrians. So back on the bus and back to the dig, worked until lunch time, then we headed back into Amman to the 8th circle Police Station and it only took an hour to process all of us, and that included filling out Arabic Language forms, having to walk around half a block through a muddy snow covered empty lot from one part of the building to another part that did the finger printing, then back to the first office to get the visa stamp. We can now stay another month! Then we had a nice walk back of about 30 minutes to the 7th circle along footpaths piled high with melting snow and streets flowing like rivers. Crossing the 8th Circle, a round-a-bout with five entry and exists each with four lines of traffic coming in with two lanes painted on the road, we discovered a pedestrian crossing. They have wasted the paint because none of the drivers knew what crossings were for. This is Jordan!

On the bright side the weather was sunny. The snow is melting in Amman although there will be sharp frost tonight. This morning at 7am the Rum Hotel River shown on yesterdays blog was frozen solid so the roads were a bit dicy. We saw a nose to tail happen at 8th circle, and three cars who had skidded into underpass walls or safety rails. As soon as we began the descent into the valley the snow disappeared and it was warm down there.

Just to remind us where we are the Australians received an advisory from their government last night to be extra careful and to avoid retail areas because of the threat of imminent terrorist attacks in Amman. Nothing from NZ or USA governments. Today when we went through the military check point going down into the valley all the soldiers were in full combat gear and there are armed police everywhere on the streets so somethings up. No one would be surprised if ISIS tries to get back at Jordan. The Jordan Times also mentioned a plot to kidnap foreigners from Jordan and take them back to ISIS held areas as hostages. We chose not to go to the Galleria Mall this afternoon. Only 5 days to go here! - and both of us are ready to move on.