Jan 2, 2010

Jerash

Yesterday we had a day off from digging so we headed to Jerash and Umm Quis. Jerash is one of the Decapolis cities and next to Ephesus one of the best preserved Roman sites in the Middle East. The round center of the city dates to the first century and was where the disciples would have walked evangelizing the local population. The city boasts several temples (Artemis and Zeus) along with 14 Byzantine churches. The highlight was some new excavations at the end of the cardo (main street). With our letter from the Department of Antiquities we are able to ender all the archaeological sites free of charge as archaeologists. This has saved us a huge amount of money as a team. We had lunch here after which we traveled north the the region of the Sea of Galilee (Jordanian side) and visited Umm Quis.

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