Hercules

Brad learned a trick that he wanted to share with you.

Ajlon #2

From the Pennical of the caslte I was able
to see for miles. This veiw is the sunsetting
in the west. Just to the left of the sun is the city of Jerusalem. Just behind the 3rd ridge you can see a small sliver of shining water. This is the Jordan valley.








This is from the same basic perspective but now we are looking to the north. I know that it is a terrible picture (sorry) but I wanted to show it because the water behind the first ridge is the southern tip of the Sea of Galilee. This is where the sea feeds into the Jordan river and eventually ends up at the dead sea.

Ajlon #1

After spending several hours at Jerash, we headed west to a city called Ajlon. On a little hill in the middle of this city is a castle that was built

in the middle ages. It was a part of a network of castles that communicated to each other with signals (like smoke signals). This network of communication extended from Damascus to Egypt. Once again I climbed to the highest point of the castle (on the left side at o the left of the fence). (Incidently, I got yelled at by the castle keepers).

The outside of this castle was not terribly attractive, but the inside would be very nice for lazer tag. Each starway led to a series of other stairways that leg back to other stariways, that led to the outside and back in again. There were even stairways to nowhere, where you could hide out.

Jerash #3

This is a picture of a temple to the Greek goddess of Artimas. People would bring sacrifices to this temple to get good fortune. But really it

was a place of immorality. If you look really close at the building at the very top (behind the front pillars). I climbed to the top of this building and

stood at it's highest point. It was a beautiful view.

Jerash #2

The first thing you notice when you enter the Southern Gate is the number of columns

lining the street. The city was set up like a big x with streets going Directly north, south,

east and west. In the middle of the x was a big

court yard. with columns circling around it. Then down each street there were columns lining the street.

The North and South Streets were probably the length of 4 football fields each. The columns were spaced probably 10 yards apart. Do the math and figure out how many columns lined the street. (Let me give you a hint it was 160) Plus there were more going east and west, and not to mention the 60 pillars around this half circle at the beginning of the south street.

Jerash #1

My hosts had class again this morning so we did not get off until 10:30a.m.
At that point we headed north to a city called Jerash. In the New Testament
it was called Gerasa (The man whose demon was cast in to the pigs was from
this area). This picture shows a main gate that is near the place where they
have chariot races.