Near Amman - Wadi Seer

Burgeoning Amman has poked its urban tentacles westward to Wadi Seer, yet this small town stubbornly maintains a rural personality. Wadi Seer, like much of the fertile hill country to the north and west of Amman, was settled by Circassians. These fair-skinned Muslims came from Russia during the Czarist persecutions of the 1870s and account for most blonde and red-headed Jordanians. Amman’s Folklore Museum displays the traditional Circassian costume—a cylindrical fur cap, and black waistcoat with red trim.

At Wadi Seer, the high desert plateau suddenly gives way to the Jordan Valley. The town’s namesake, a muddy little stream, snakes through the countryside on its way to the Dead Sea. The narrow asphalt road that follows this valley out of town seems designed for daytripping motorists and tramping backpackers. Verdant tobacco plants and olive trees, along with a multitude of young children, line the 12km road, running southwest to the ruins at Iraq al-Emir and the nearby grottos. The occasional Bedouin tent or woman herding her goats peeks out from the hills as the road approaches the ruins. The villagers of Wadi Seer believe that the identity of the site’s mysterious builders is encoded in the carvings on the monolithic blocks of brown stone that stand between the town and the caves. The only clue offered by the caves is the Aramaic inscription “Tobiah” near two of the cave windows.