Trip #2: Desert Castles

When most of us think of the desert, we picture vast stretches of sand, rolling dunes, a merciless sun overhead in a cloudless sky. For some areas of the world, that depiction may be accurate, but the desert wears many faces. An hour and a half outside of Madaba, the desert switches from goatgrass and gritty rubble to grey-black expanses of chert and basalt chunks overlaying dusty soil. This is the transition zone between the Fertile Crescent and the deep desert. It is in such an environment that we find the first castle on the tour—Qasr al-Kharaneh.

                That last picture was taken in a tiny side hallway that led to a pitch-black tunnel. Over the years, someone had scored a massive swastika into the stone at the end of the hallway, next to the tunnel opening. We were in a group, sharing the half terrified excitement of a forbidden passage. Who knew what it held? One of the others commented, “Haven’t we learned by now that going down dark, mysterious hallways marked by swastikas in ancient ruins is not a good idea?”

Further into the desert, settled among the black plains, is Qusayr `Amra. Once adorned with lavish frescoes, this 8^th Century bath house and meeting place is still willing to share some of its former beauty with visitors. The iconoclasm, which saw the destruction of most artistic depictions of living creatures and religious imagery, somehow seemed to miss the abodes of the rich. 

                The last stop on our tour took us through hills of basalt boulders and into Azraq, once an oasis, to see Qasr al-Azraq. Some of you might recognize the black stone edifice as the base of operations of Lawrence of Arabia; while the castle, in its current incarnation (it was built by Romans, then destroyed and rebuilt by Izz Ed Din Aybak), is about 800 years old, Lawrence made use of it as recently as 1918 or so.

The amount of graffiti at these sites was distressing. Some folks just have no respect for history—their own, or that of anyone else. Despite the modern mutilations, these massive structures are still imposing, still full of mystery, and still capable of awakening the adventurer in all of us.