Near Karak

Highway 49/80 (for added confusion, maps may say 50) west from Karak drops from the Kings’ Highway for 20km until it reaches the Dead Sea “port” of Mazra’ah and the Al-Lisan (tongue) Peninsula. About 5km before reaching Mazra’ah and the Wadi Araba Highway to Aqaba, Highway 80 passes Bab ad-Dhira. The cemeteries at this ancient site contain some 20.000 shaft tombs enshrining 500,000 bodies (an unfortunate body-per-tomb ratio) and over 3 million pottery vessels. The length of the bones indicates that the average height in Bab ad-Dhira was a sturdy 2m.

Hitchers report that there is very little traffic between here and Karak. Stop in at the Mazra’ah Police Post, 5km north of the junction, if you need assistance. The Wadi Araba highway, running right beside Israel, is sometimes closed to civilian travel; hitchhiking there is always prohibited.

Traveling east of Karak on Highway 49/80 toward Qatrana on the Desert Highway you’ll pass the turn-off for Al-Lejjun, where archeologists have excavated the Roman Empire’s southeasternmost frontier post. Streets, a tower, a church, and a principium, dating from 30 AD and destroyed by an earthquake in 551, have all been unearthed. The main ruin site is 2km north of the turn-off, on the hill below more recent Turkish barracks (now used as stables), intended to defend the nearby railway against T.E. Lawrence and his posse and constructed from stone pillaged from the site. Take a service (45Ofils) or bus (310fils) toward Qatrana and ask the driver to let you off at the “Lejjun” turn-off (the sign is in Arabic only).

The tremendous hospitality of locals is virtually guaranteed and your only hope in towns just north of Karak on the Kings’ Highway (Rabbah, Qasr) and immediately to the south (Mazar, Tafilah). The mosques at Mu’tah and at the nearby village of Mazar commemorate the Islamic generals who died in the first great battles between the forces of Islam and Byzantium in 632 AD. The green-domed mosque in Mazar houses a small Islamic museum on the first floor.