Near Amman: Azraq and the Desert Castles

Adjacent to sultry desert lava fields, Azraq’s dusty green foliage comes as a welcome respite. As T.E. Lawrence (of Arabia) rather obscurely noted, “Numen in est” ("Where’s the latrine?"). The springs at Azraq are the only permanent bodies of water in an expanse of over 2500 square km of barren sand-and-scorpion desert. Thus, the oasis serves as a resting stop for truck drivers from three continents and hundreds of species of’exotic birds moiting their way through Jordan’s desert.

The discovery of an enormous cache of flint hand-axes indicates that either paleolithic settlers or extremely sophisticated camels hunted in the area 500,000 years ago. The most remarkable records of human habitation are the scattered Umayyad castles, a group of structures that originally formed a chain from the north of Damascus to Khirbet al-Mafjar near Jericho. Built in the 7th and 8th centuries by the Umayyads, the castles were mysteriously abandoned a century later. The imposing stonework of Qasr Harraneh and strategic location of Qasr Azraq and Qasr Mus-hatta support speculation that the castles sheltered caravans along the trade route between Syria, Arabia, and the Far East. The baths near Qasr al-Hallabat and the magnificent frescos at Qasr Amra brought creature comforts to the desert.