Thursday, July 22, 2010

Jewels of Jordan: Jerash

Tetrapylon, an intersection of Jerash's Cardo with the first cross street in the ancient ruins of Jerash. The cardo is a north–south oriented street in Roman cities, military camps, and coloniae. The cardo, an integral component of city planning, is lined with shops and vendors, and served as a hub of economic life.

The Hippodrome wall. Hippodrome is a stadium for horse and chariot racing.


The Arch of Hadrian, built to honour the visit of emperor Hadrian to Jerash in 129/130 AD.


The Hippodrome, a stadium for horse and chariot racing.


Roman ruins

The Roman Southern Amphitheatre


The cobbled street and Roman pillars of Jerash

Fountain



The Roman Northern Amphitheatre

The Arch of Hadrian, built to honour the visit of emperor Hadrian to Jerash in 129/130 AD.




The Hippodrome. Hippodrome is a stadium for horse and chariot racing. The hippodrome has ten starting gates (carceres), as opposed to the usual twelve, which have now been re–assembled from the rubble with other missing stones quarried and rebuilt. The seating area (cavea) was 4m deep with sixteen rows of seats. The seats accommodated 15,000 spectators who, it is said, were Greek–speaking even during Roman time.



The stone altar of the Hellenistic period



The Roman Oval Piazza

The Bedouins performing at the Roman Southern Amphitheatre

The cobbled street and Roman pillars of Jerash

Modern–day Jerash from Ancient Jerash (Gerasa)

The Roman Northern Amphitheatre

Photos by SkyJuice and Qusai Alazzam.
© All rights reserved.

The huge, ancient city of Jerash or Graeco–Roman city of Gerasa, is also referred to as Antioch on the Golden River. Jerash lies on a plain surrounded by hilly wooded areas and fertile basins. Conquered by General Pompey in 63 BC, it came under Roman rule and was one of the ten great Roman cities, the Decapolis League. Jerash is one of the world's largest and most well–preserved sites of Roman architecture outside of Italy. The entrance fee for foreigners is JD8 (US$10.40).

Jerash is one of the highlights of my trip to Jordan. I marvelled in awe at the sight of this beautiful Roman city.

Source: www.visitjordan.com

2 comments:

Joseph Pulikotil said...

Hi Skyjuice:)

This is another wonderful tour of ancient cities and towns. Romans were really great people with plenty of courage and strength and cunning to conquer the most part of the known world. Their excelled in barbarous sport like making slaves fight with each other with deadly weapons and kill themselves. I have seen some old movies like SPARTACUS which show the savagery involved in such sports. They did it for enjoyment.

You have really visited some marvelous places on earth and had first hand experience of some of the greatest and oldest nations in the world which of course is invaluable. You did make a very wise decision to go to these amazing places of historical importance.

I was enchanted to see the different places portrayed so beautifully in your photos and they speak for themselves with the magic charm and aura of the ancient world.

It is a wonderful experience for me to see these places preserved for posterity through your magnificent lenses.

Best wishes:)
Joseph

SkyJuice said...

Thank you for your comments and kind words, Joseph. Appreciate your regular visits.

More travel stories soon. :-)