Jericho and Qumran

Saturday 11th February

We went on towards Jericho which is claimed to be the lowest city on Earth and the oldest continually inhabited place on Earth. On the way we stopped at a local viewpoint to have Dead Sea cosmetics demonstrations and to buy local dates.

Sandy had mud applied to her arm to make her skin younger.

The hard sell included dressing me up!

The camels looked on bemused

 We then visited Hisham's Palace. Extensive ruins with fantastic mosaics from the Islamic Umayyad period.

 

Most of the mosaics were hidden under carpet and sand to keep them preserved but this fantastic Tree of Life could be viewed. It's thought that this may have been an area for the Caliph to sit.

John looking inside the model of the palace

  We then went for lunch at Al Rawda, which was really good

Mohammed in the garden of the Restaurant

We then went to Qumran, site of the Dead Sea Scrolls and very busy with tourists. We overheard some quite fanciful tales being told to gullible American tourists by their guides. Ours stuck more closely to what is known, which isn't a lot. They were probably an Essene community who abandoned Jerusalem for a "purer life". They hid their scrolls in caves when they thought the Roman Army was coming to destroy them and nobody came back to collect them. The scrolls were hidden for centuries and found by shepherds in the 20th Century. The biggest part of the scrolls are copies of Hebrew scriptures but there is quite a bit more as well.

Bath for ceremonial washing

One of the caves

Tanas gives us his spin on the story

Camels on the way to the Beach

We then went on to a "private beach" on the Dead Sea which was very crowded as lots of tourists had a float in the Dead Sea. It was an experience. It's something you have to do and is definitely a bit weird.