Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Mother of Bullets أم الرصاص

  


    Pardon my late posting! We have had some internet problems the last couple of days, and this is my first opportunity to blog. To make up for my lateness, I am posting a link to a video that my classmate (actually he is the resident camera man for research purposes) made of our trip on Saturday. (I am wearing a pink shirt.) I am also giving you extra-large pictures, it seems---our -fixed freshlyinternet can only do so much:)
    I actually planned Saturday's trip (I am still trying to collect everybody's money!) to Mukawir (or Muwakir in Arabic--we keep mixing them up) and Am Rasas, which is actually a wonderful, still-in-the-process-of-being-excavated Byzantine village with magnificent mosaics, but its name in Arabic translates to "mother of bullets."
     Mukawir is the ruined palace/temple of King Herod, where Salome did the Dance of the 7 Veils for the head of John the Baptist. Here I am with some of the other girls trying to recreate the scene---we actually kept most of our veils on, but our professor still said the performance was worth several heads!

     Overall, despite the challenges, it was such a great trip! The palace is on its own mountain in the middle nowhere, and we took a bus to it and had to hike the rest of the way. Afterward, we hiked down into some of the many natural/improved caves where, as the story goes, John the Baptist was actually imprisoned.
     If you really enjoyed the last video, here's another one of the trip we took to Wadi Seer.

    

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