Going East: Part 2

To say that she was unimpressed by Qasr Amra is an understatement. Claudia’s exact words were “Is that it? This is not a castle!”. And, in truth, she had point. It was not so much a castle as a building with two rounded domes for roofs. More so than Kharana, Amra would be easy miss were it not for the small brown sign marking the left turn. After the sign, there is another non-descript parking lot with yet another bored guard, and the building itself lies in a low wadi making it difficult to pick out from the road.

Naturally, we all curious our small but ferocious Kia Picanto into the scalding parking lot thinking along the lines of: “This had better be worth it”.

We met immediate gratification in the unassuming and weathered sign placed near the exit of the parking lot. The sign read thusly: World Heritage Site of Quseir Amra

Yes, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural has designated this small building a site that has “Special Cultural or Physical Significance for the past and future of the world”. This building, that looks like Luke’s childhood home on Tatooine,

is important for the posterity of all the word. We had unwittingly found one of the most important physical sites around the world; One of five in Jordan, and one of nine-hundred-and-eighty-one around the world. On that illustrious list are all of the ones that are all the ones you think of first: Petra, Jerusalem, The Taj Mahal, Serengeti National Park, etc. These are the type of places that obviously merit the preservation and recognition that goes along with a World Heritage designation. They are places that hosted the events that moved the world forward. Or, are places that preserve it in a way that we ought not to forget.

If one investigates this list further, it also includes several disused coal mines in Germany and Belgium, the University of Virginia, and an abandoned whaling station on the coast of Labrador in Canada. Surely they have historical merits, they are just far more difficult to discern. And, knowing that they too are on the list, does tend to take the shine off of the award. Still, we hadn't expected to find such a well known designation all the way out in the black rock deserts of Jordan. Especially not when considering it was being watched over by basically two people.

Our curiosity was therefore peaked at the sight of the faded sign. Why was it so important?

As it turned out, the award was very well deserved. A local Bedouin, who had been hanging out the guards, offered to show us around. His English was suspect, but in general we were able to glean that there was no mystery about the purpose of Qasr Amra.

It was built by the Uthman caliphs as a comfortable way-stay while traversing the desert between their then capital of Damascus and other newly acquired possessions. Although the specific caliph who ordered the construction is still up for debate, it is agreed that the site was constructed around the years 723-743 AD, probably by Walid II. Amra was small on purpose. It's was likely used only sparingly and therefore necessitated only basic provisions. The site still contains a working well to feed the house with running water as well as the attached roman style bath. It was originally pumped by a beast of burden turning the wheel, but today we graciously allowed Claudia to pantomime the role of donkey/camel.

The really interesting thing at Amra, as well as the reason for its UNESCO designation, is what lies in inside the building. Our guide unlocked the rusted comedy padlock, and revealed that inside remain the original frescoes and wall paintings from more one thousand years ago. From floor to ceiling the interior was bright, multicolored and exceptionally inviting. With our guides suspect English aiding our eyes, we could see on one wall pictographic descriptions of the buildings construction (all of which displayed a flowing river in the now dusty wadi adjacent to the building). Opposite those was a large mural of the Caliph, his vanquished neighboring kings, and dignitaries. The ceiling too was covered end to end by squares with human figures in them. None of the art was particularly striking except for the fact of its location. The fact that it still today in such clear and well preserved condition through such a harsh climate and history is astounding. Even previously dismissive Claudia, was now openly admitting her amazement.

Our guide then astonished us just a little bit further than that. He had been duly pointing out different parts of the wall paintings and had subsequently moved to the ceiling. At which time the question, “Do you know the Karma Sutra?” was ejected from his mouth.

Having been in Jordan for sometime now, was all silently assumed that was his creepy attempted at chatting up Claudia. However on turning to look at him, we saw that he was in fact not looking at Claudia but at the ceiling. He was also continuing his “lecture” as if nothing was out of place.

“Here we can see the versions of the Karma Sutra”

His flashlight was now illuminating fully the paintings he had been gazing innocently at now for ten minutes.

“Here we can see the sixty-nine position…. There is Doggy Style… Here we can see threesome…”

None of us had looked close enough to realize the ancient artwork also happened to be ancient porn. The entire roof of the building was covered in chipped pictures of all manner of debauchery and sexual excess that one could think of. Our guide finished explaining the paintings and proceeded to make clear that this was the perfect location for the caliphs to entertain “ladies of a certain persuasion”. Lord only knows where or how our small Bedouin came by the vocabulary necessary for this, but he was doing a remarkably detailed job.

UNESCO describes this “unique pleasure palace” as having “richly decorated and figurative murals the reflect the secular art of the time”. And, it they correct when they describe animals playing lyres as figurative. They are also correct as describing the accurately painted zodiac as richly decorated. But, an anatomically accurate menage-trois scene is neither figurative or rich. The term “pleasure palace” is is also striking for for its blandness as the term “Royal Booty Palace” seems more accurate

The detail continued in the first room of the bath section which depicted the life of a man from birth to death across the ceiling. While poignant in theory, it rather lost its touch by the very realistic scene of birth. The second room, or steam room, was covered with covered interesting floral designs. However, it was rather overshadowed by the engineering on display.

It was clear to see how the floor had been raised in order to allow steam to piped under the floor as well as up the walls. It is a design pioneered by the Romans throughout their empire. That it was being copied by the new empire which assisted in the destruction of the last vestiges of Rome (the Byzantines from Constantinople) speaks to the endurance of the design. This recurring copy-cat game can be seen all over the Mediterranean world. When Zenobia wrested Palmyra away from Roman dominion she still copied their urban planning.

The final room of the bath portion was a small domed alcove with the dome assuming principle importance. Being round, it made the perfect canvas for imitating the sky. In this particular case it was an accurate sky map of the signs of the zodiac, arc of the Milky Way, and other important navigation stars. One could, imagine after a hard day of fornication, a caliph relaxing in his hot bath visualizing the night sky.

We tipped our makeshift guide 2 dinar out of thanks. We had genuinely not expected to have such an education. The long walk back to the parking lot was enough time for all three of us to reflect on the nature of Amra. In a time when Islam was taking the world by storm it truly unique that a caliph’s property would be covered in sex and the zodiac. Islam had gone forth preaching oneness with the prophet. Part and parcel of the theology necessitated doing away with artwork based selfishly on humans. This is the reason that mosques are always decorated with script from the Koran. It has also been perverted recently by ISIS as justification for the destruction of numerous ancient monuments in Syria and Iraq: it depicts things other than God’s word therefore it is sacrilegious.

Amra therefore preserves a unique point in the evolution of Islam. Whichever Caliph, leader of the believing Muslims of the world, built a palace covered in artwork of diverse and non religious topics. Of course the impunity of his position, as well as the physical impunity of Amra’s location, probably helped allow the construction. But still, the fact that it was built and decorated in the way it was speaks to the unique time in which it existed. It is a small slice of the development of Islam. By this standard it makes all the sense in the world that UNESCO should include it on it’s list.

Of course it took us some time to develop this idea of course. But we had plenty of time to discuss on the long drive to Castle Azraq.