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Umm-Ar-Rasas and Mukawir
Umm-Ar-Rasas (ancient Mayphaath) is listed as one of the places on the Moab plateau. Eusebius in his geographical dictionary lists a Roman military camp in Mayfa’a (early Umm Ar-Rasas) as the village whose inhabitants killed Zayd ibn Amr, a pre-Islamic monotheist, on his way to Mecca to convert to Islam. The Romans fortified it and the local Christians were still embellishing it with Byzantine-styel mosaics well over 100 years after the beginning of the Muslim rule.
Historical Sites
- Rectangular-walled city has several buildings, four churches, and beatiful stone arches
- The Church of St. Stephen contains a very large, perfectly preserved mosaic floor laid down in 718 AD
- Less than 2km north is the highest standing ancient tower of Jordan
Machaerus (Mukawir in Arabic), along the Kings’ Highway, is the hilltop stronghold of Herod the Great. His son Herod Antipas inherited the fortress and it is from here that he ordered John the Baptist to be beheded after Salome’s fateful dance of the seven veils. It was also the scene of a Roman siege during the first Jewish revolt against Rome.
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