The Castle of Ravens

Amman to Karak, Jordan

I am staying at the Hisham hotel in Amman. It is centrally located near the 3rd circle, is clean and well maintained and the management and staff are exceedingly pleasant and helpful - it is apparently frequented by UN people, journalists, writers and the like. The only downside as far as I am concerned is the food. Breakfast consisted of ‘air bread’, triangles of cream cheese, packets of jam and Nescafe. I don’t think there was a vitamin in the entire package. It would be undoubtedly cheaper, tastier and certainly healthier if they were to offer flat Arabic bread, labneh (yoghurt), olives, boiled eggs, local cheese and jam. Just a suggestion for the new owners......

And now, picking up from Bosra where we left Ibn B............

“They travel next to the Pool of Ziza where they stop for a day then go on to al-Lajjun where there is running water, and thence to the castle of al-Karak.”

The Pool of Ziza is now called Jiza and is a dusty town almost attached to Amman, such has the city grown. It does however still possess an enormous cistern which is virtually dry, a small white rowboat sits rather forlornly on its dry bed, undoubtedly wondering how it got there. It should be the rainy season here but so far there have been only a few days of rain during Ramadan and early November, and since then nothing - people are now praying in the mosques for rain that Jordan badly needs. (It has however snowed in large parts of the country.)

The pool of Ziza today.

Because I had not eaten breakfast, we stopped at a roadside place and had fateh, hummus with ground lamb and pine nuts, (a typical breakfast dish), foul - in Jordan the custom is to puree the fava beans, yogurt, olives and omelet with flat bread (khibis) and strong Turkish coffee. Delicious and SO much healthier.........

On to al-Lejjun which we sailed past twice because the ruins that were there have now blended entirely into the landscape. It was originally a Roman garrison town and clearly was still used as a pilgrim stop into the 14th century perhaps because, as Ibn B. accurately states, it is next to a river where the pilgrims could load up supplies for the next segment of the trip. The blocks of masonry stone have now so throroughly collapsed and dispersed into the rocky desert floor that unless you know exactly where to look you see nothing except large flocks of wooly brown sheep and black goats nibbling and grazing on desert scrub.

The remains of the Roman fort.
Karak is in much better shape today then the last time I visited. A considerable renovation plan is underway and excavation work is planned for the future. The castle was built by the Crusaders as a point between Jerusalem and Shobak, (my favorite castle in all Jordan - the bleakest, most desolate site you can imagine - visit on a day of leaden skies, freezing temperatures and rain-whipped wind, and you wonder what possessed those addled knights from the balmy south of France to ever leave their lavender estates.) But back to Karak - an imposing castle indeed though set in less austere surroudings than Shobak.

Ibn Battuta,

“Al Karak is one of the most marvellous, inaccessible and celebrated of fortresses and it is called the ‘castle of ravens’. The river bed encircles it on all sides, and it has but one gate, the entrance to which is hewn in living rock, as also is the entrance to its vestibule.”

The gate he refers to is the Crusader Gate and it will shortly once again become the main entrance into the castle. As Ibn B. again accurately describes, the gate is cut out of the rock which forms a passageway between the gate and the inner entrance - this double entry system limited the number of people who could enter at one time, a typical Crusader defensive technique. Once inside, large sections of the stables, barracks and kitchen have been renovated and cleared, as has a Crusader church and sacristy which is still being dug out from centuries of piled up dirt and debris. At the far end is a restored Mamluk tower and on the lower level a market area has been opened up with a small archaeological museum displaying finds from the castle.

The view to the south-west of Kerak castle.

Ibn Battuta goes on to relate a story about his favorite Sultan, al-Malik Nasir Mohammed, who sought refuge here when his viceroy, Salar, in collaboration with the Mamluk Baibars, seized power from him when he was still under age. Baibars was excuted by al-Nasir when he regained power while the worthless viceroy,

“was seized and confined in a dungeon until he died of starvation, and it is said that he ate carrion in his hunger - may God preserve us from the like.”

Maybe this is why it is called the castle of the ravens (crows?) Or perhaps it had to do with the depraved and sadistic Reynaud de Chatillon’s predilection for throwing prisoners off the parapet with a wooden box on their head to prevent them losing consciousness on the way down.

On the way to the castle I had spotted a signpost indicating ‘The Shrine of the Prophet Noah’....... I wonder what the occupant of the 42 meter tomb in Karak Noh in Lebanon would have to say? Anyone reading this blog regularly will by now be quite familiar with the concept of multiple tombs, and shrines to heads. So far as I recall there are 4 heads of John the Baptist, 3 tombs to Hud (a Muslim prophet), 3 tombs of Noah, 2 tombs of Joseph, 2 tombs of Lot, 3 tombs of al-Khidr (another Muslim prophet associated with St. George) 4 tombs of Sukaina, grand-daughter of Mohammed........ The grand tally will be at the end.

On the way back to Amman, we made a detour to Umm ar-Rasas, another of Jordan’s UNESCO World Heritage Sites since 2004. The site consists of four churches including St. Stephen’s Church built in 785 AD, which has splendid mosaics in situ. They include fishing, hunting and agricultural scenes, the names of the benefactors of the mosaic and/or church, and 10 names and pictorial representations of cities, all written in Greek. Umm ar-Rasas is ostensibly the Biblical Mephaath, a Roman garrison town. Nearby is another site with fairly intact external walls but which is all rubble inside except for the top of four church arches eerily rising above the piles of stone.

The central floor mosiac with the pictorial representation and names of 10 nearby cities.

To get to the site from the Desert Highway is easy, but if you come via the historic Kings’ Highway then you will pass through Wadi Mujib Gorge, a rather spectacular switchback road through a barren limestone escarpment. Al-Lehun, another Roman garrison town and part of the Roman Limes Arabicus, a series of defensive posts built to protect the outermost limits of the Roman Empire from the ‘barbarians’, overlooks the gorge and its reservoir from a bitingly cold and windy outcrop high above. If you come this way stop for tea and a chat with the affable Abed Awad who owns Trajan Cafe, near the completely razed Trajan’s fort, which has outstanding views over the gorge. For hikers, he has a few beds in which to overnight........