Dear all,
Friday we had to get up at the crack of dawn, 6 am, if we wanted to get to Jerash in time, and see the ancient city. This was due to the jordanian change into summertime. The ancient city of Jerash is wonderful and very huge, and we had 2 hours to go through every thing, before we had to be at the hippodrome at 11 am to see the Roman Army performance. Before this, we had another performance by Nihad Hendawi, who sang for us in the Roman Theatre, accompanied by a man with a drome.
In the Hippodrome we were introduced to the show by Stellan Lind, the inventor of the Roman Army Performance, who told us a little bit about the history. The Roman Army performance consisted of three things. First we saw a legion of roman soldiers, whom accompanied by a narrator, showed us their clothes, shoes, weapon and etc. The we saw fighting between gladiators, and at the end, two biga chariots racing around the spina in the hippodrome. After the show we had the opportunity to ask the performers questions and get our picture taken with them. We were of course very interested in the textiles they were wearing.
After Jerash we drove to the Iraq al Amir Handicraft Village where we were greated with a big homemade feast by the women working there. After a long day in Jerash we could certainly use some food. After lunch, the women showed us around in their handicraft village. In the village they make paper, soap, ceramics and textiles. We certainly also had time to by some of their products.
The rest of the evening was free, and we ended yet another evening with dinner at the hotel.
Stay tuned....
Camilla