One of the fun trips we took was up to the Northern boundary of Jordan with Syria and Israel. These are the ruins of the ancient Roman City of Gadara. As you can see it is built largely of black basalt. Capernaum was also built of black basalt. Capernaum is only about 10-15 miles away. All of this black basalt is a volcanic phenomenon resulting from the creation of the Jordan Valley rift. This black volcanic rock was forced up as the valley went down. Gedara is built of the brow of a very steep hill. Either the Sea of Galilee was larger in Jesus' day or else there is another location closer to the sea. This city is a good mile or more from the Sea of Galilee. The Israeli's have identified
another town about 5 miles north of this city, that
is a more likely site for the story of the
story of the Gadarene Swine.
The picture above shows the entrance into the town with its majestic columns. This was the entrance into the main business section of the city. To the right you can see the coliseum built entirely of black basalt. The first known records show that Gadara had people as early as the 7th century BC. It fell into ruin after the Muslim conquest about 650AD.
Here are Twiddle Dum and Tiddle Dee at the top of the coliseum, trying to find fun poses
This was a row of shops. This part of the city was in good enough condition that they could have used it!
From the shops we took a left turn to another business and residential area. There were ruins of Christian churches, Roman temple and some pretty palatial mansions. We had a great time exploring some of the various digs.
You can see the ruts of the chariot wheels. This road was heavily used.
Now we are at the brow of the hill, looking at an Israeli town and the Golan Heights. The light colored hill on the right of the photo is Syria. The cloud shadowed hill next to the sky are the Golan Heights. If you look carefully you can see a tiny bit of the Sea of Galilee on the left. The green trees in the foreground is being watered by the Yarmouk River.
Here is a good view of the Sea of Galilee. The hills on the far side are the hills that go to Cana and Nazareth. The right of the photo goes up to Capernaum, Magdala and all the little towns of Galilee were the bulk of Jesus' time was spent.
So, finally we left Gadara by going down into the Yarmouk River valley. There was a tremendous battle fought here between the Byzantine's and the Muslims in 636 AD and the city was pretty much vacated and left to disintegrate into the dust of antiquity.
