Jordan April 13

Woke up to a steady rain. Fine with me, I don't have any big plans.

Amman has a long history, but everything is built on top of the previous culture, so all you see is the latest edition. It was a village until the king decided to make it the capital of the new country, Jordan, in 1921.

Most of the people living here came from somewhere else, primarily Palestine. 

The only ancient historical sites are the Roman Theatre, across the street from me, and the citadel on top of a big hill right behind my hotel.

The rain seemed to stop at about 10, so I decided to go to the Jordan Museum. This has just opened, and is the principal museum in the country.

I had fun walking along the Main Street to the museum. There are a lot of interesting little shops. There are no large shops, everything is small, about the size of an average living room at home. My favourite coffee shop is about 5 feet, by 15 feet, just enough room to turn around. He does a thriving business taking take-out orders from the surrounding businesses. Pricing is also interesting. In Petra an Arabic coffee was 2JD, in Aqaba 1JD. I couldn't find any place in Jarash or Irbid, but here he charges 0.35 JD

I came across two stores that sold, and made saddles. Many clothing stores. Just about anything you can think of.

The museum was worth the visit. The previous museums dealt, primarily with the history of the last 6000 years in their area.

The Jordan Museum goes back to the Stone Age and it has great displays. One of the more interesting has human statues from before 7000 BC. They claim they are the oldest representations of humans in the world. 

The other area I found fascinating was a special exhibit on the Dead Sea Scrolls. These were first discovered in 1947 by a Palestinian shepherd. The scrolls were in clay containers, which explains they are as well preserved as they are. They caves where they were found are on the West Bank, which at that time was part of Palestine. 

I have read about their significance, because they date back to before 100 AD, thus predate the New Testament, and are the documents closest to the time of Jesus.

It was a thrill to have the discoveries explained, and to see the real thing, or at least part of the real thing.

I walked home in a drizzle; the high today is 12.