Hauran part 2

Well, that was weird. Blogger stopped me putting up any more photos on that last blog - perhaps it recognized that I was up way past my bed-time. Or it was some simple error, and I was too tired to work it out.

So here are more photos from that day-trip with Pierre-Marie:

The Syrians have discovered a red plastic, and now every house has water tanks made from this very bright red. I'm in two minds about it - they told me it is the only possible colour for water tanks, although here in Jordan we use white plastic, which is somewhat less visually polluting in the landscape.
Does make the columns of the Rabbos pseudo-peripteral temple at Canawat/Qanawat/Canatha look better than ever.


This is a shot of the wadi which was used as a major water source in the Nabataean/Roman era. Not quite visible behind the conifers is a theatre, further around to the right, out of shot, are bits and pieces of aqueduct and nymphaeum (public fountain, highly decorated) none of which make much sense in a photo, so this shot shows a Modern bridge and a round Druze temple. Can't tell you much about what goes on in it, as the Druze religion is an initiation religion, and you move up in knowledge.




This is the outer face of the Serail, which used to be a Roman temple, and was converted to a church complex, and then was remodelled again in the Islamic/mediaeval period. Alot of it includes spolia from other buildings.















































That's all folks - the Si'a and Shahba photos aren't that great - I was concentrating on technical issues for those sites - and of course, had missed the Shahba mosaics.

Next stop .... Baalbek!!