The Complete Collection of Travel Literature

by Tahir Shah

  And, of course, all too soon, the technology that made such travel possible for one, made it possible for all – with a result of a homogenized global culture – something Halliburton would surely have despised.

  As I see it, what he stood for was as important as what he achieved. A new romantic without equal, Halliburton’s joie de vivre and gung-ho attitude was itself a catalyst that rallied a generation to go out and seek marvels of their own. And, as such, his legacy is not only poignant, but a tangible gift that continues to inspire today.

  A contemporary of Hemmingway, the young Richard Halliburton had none of the melancholy and all of the passion. Brimming with charm, good looks and natural charisma, he was the kind of man to which both men and women were drawn.

  While others were languishing on the terrors of the Great War, he was setting about making a name for himself by crisscrossing crumbling empires by any means possible. Making use of the media with impressive foresight, one can only imagine the heights he’d have soared to given the technology we all take for granted today.

  To grasp Halliburton’s celebrity, one must remember the time in which he lived. His playground was the world caught in a no man’s land between the Wars. The British Empire still ruled the seas, ferocious tribes inhabited the immense African plains and the seething jungles of the Amazon and Borneo; and motor cars were a jeu du jour for tin-pot dictators, Maharajahs, and for anyone else with the means to afford them.

  A pioneer, a trail-blazer, not to mention a media junkie, Halliburton understood the power of making a splash. In the vein of Ripley’s Believe It Or Not, he tantalized his readers with jaw-dropping accounts of intrigue, exploration and awe.

  His books are a cocktail of key ingredients. They have adventure in great measure, humour, and a smattering of history. But, more importantly, they give the reader the overwhelming sense that just about anyone could follow Halliburton’s lead and embark on a madcap escapade just like him.

  And, for me, that’s the really great attraction of all his work.

  A fresh young-faced layman with no technical experience, Richard Halliburton surfed a tidal wave of enthusiasm and good old get-upand-go. He wasn’t trying to impress with ground-breaking hypotheses, or by discovering far-flung lands. Rather, his writing was a sympathetic lens through which ordinary people could experience the extraordinary world in which they lived.

  FIFTY-NINE

  The Sanctuary of Lot

  THE PEOPLE OF SAFI speak fondly of the stranger who came to live with them six years ago.

  They tell of how the curious Greek man would sneak out of the town before dawn each morning. And they recount how he would amble about on a barren hillside all day for what seemed like no reason at all.

  ‘Sometimes we would stand at the bottom of the hill and laugh at him!’ chuckles Mohammed Abdul, a local trader. ‘People came from miles away to watch him wandering about in circles in the blazing sun. As you know this is the lowest point of land in the world. It’s damn hot here!’ Mohammed’s smile suddenly disappears. ‘But’, he says gently, ‘who was to know then what the crazy Greek man was to find?’

  Constantine Politis, an archaeologist from Athens, was first drawn to Jordan by its rich ancient heritage. Having studied archaeology in Greece, in the United States and in England, he spent years excavating in Greece, Jordan, Oman and in Liechtenstein. His overwhelming fascination has always been for the Holy Land and for the Levant. Yet despite the region’s known Biblical legacy, Politis felt sure that more Old Testament sites were waiting to be unearthed.

  So he spent many hours gazing at the fabled mosaic map of the Holy Land, at Madaba, in western Jordan. The map, located on the floor of the Madaba’s Greek Orthodox Church – dates back to the sixth century AD – and provides the most accurate reference guide we have to the Holy Land in Byzantine times. The Madaba map, with Jerusalem at its centre, depicts the locations of over one hundred and fifty Biblical places.

  As Politis stared at the soft pastel mosaic of ancient cities, of rivers and forests, he noticed something startling.

  On the southern banks of the Dead Sea, above the Biblical town of Zoar, the map showed a small monastery – dedicated to the Biblical figure Lot. The retreat, which seemed to be perched on a mountain, had eluded archaeologists. Using the map and his Biblical knowledge as his guide, Politis went down to the ancient town of Zoar, which is today called Safi.

  On a treasure hunt, he pressed on out of Safi for a mile or so. The Dead Sea was on his left and, on the right, was a mountain – the only one in the immediate area. And, as depicted on the Madaba map, there were date palms at its base. He was just a few miles from Qumran – where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found in 1947.

  For the first time Politis ascended the steep scree slope, with its dramatic views over the Holy Land. He climbed halfway up the hillside and looked around. There was no monastery as the Madaba map had suggested.

  But there was something else instead.

  ‘I kept finding clues, incredible clues!’ Politis exclaims as he remembers that first morning. ‘There were mosaic cubes strewn about on the surface. But they weren’t any old mosaic cubes, instead they were exquisitely fashioned – as if they had come from a palace. Then I started to find other clues – shards of fine pottery, fragments of sculpted stone, things like that. Remember that all this was halfway up a totally barren hillside.’

  Intrigued, Politis had a hunch he was onto something – something very important indeed.

  And, while the local people of Safi felt sure he was a madman, the archaeologist was certain there was more to the mountain than met the eye.

  ‘I refused to let myself think the unthinkable,’ recalls Politis. ‘The obvious temptation – to link the site with the Prophet Lot – was too great. So, instead of jumping to hasty conclusions, I proceeded to get modest funding from the British Museum and from the Jordanian government, and I began to excavate.’

  Engaging a team of workmen from Safi, and having been joined with a small international contingent of archaeologists, Politis began the laborious process of excavation.

  ‘We named the site Deir Ain Abata – which means the Monastery of the Abbot’s Spring’, says Politis, ‘you see there’s an ancient freshwater spring at the base of the mountain.’

  But despite the rather grand name they found no monastery. The initial work involved making a series of topographic maps and contour plans of the area, collecting shards from the surface, and so forth.

  ‘Even in those early days it was certain that this was no ordinary hillside,’ says Politis, ‘Why were there so many luxury items? Why was so much effort put into building structures on such a secluded and precarious location? And why were there such high quality architectural pieces strewn about on the ground? Things just didn’t add up. Of one thing we were certain: that this wasn’t just another Byzantine fort or farmstead.’

  Every schoolboy knows the story of Lot.

  The tale, which is told in Genesis, recounts how God was angered by the depraved antics of the people living at two cities in the Holy Land’s cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. Having sent angels to guide Lot – the one righteous man and his family – from area, God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah with fire and brimstone. And, as every school child is well aware, Lot’s wife defied the angelic instructions: she turned around and became a pillar of salt.

  Genesis, chapter nineteen continues that Lot and his two daughters left the city of Zoar and sought refuge in a cave overlooking the Dead Sea, which is itself known in Arabic as ‘The Sea of Lot’.

  And, as the scriptures relate how Lot’s daughters, fearing that they may never bear children, plied their father with alcohol and seduced him. Both became pregnant. From their offspring – Mobab and Ammon – many of the Arab peoples of the Middle East are descended.

  Historians like the eminent Jordanian scholar Rami Khouri suggest a deeper reason for the rather sordid events, which are reported in Genesis.

  ‘The Genesis accounts
in the Bible,’ says Khouri, ‘were written in ancient Hebrew by Jews who were constantly fighting against the Ammonites and Moabites. Depicting the origins of their trans-Jordanian enemies in this manner may simply have been an extension of national combat – into the sphere of literary religious texts.’

  Lot has been a popular Biblical figure since before Byzantine times, there being numerous churches, tombs and monasteries dedicated to him across the Holy Land. And, in more modern times there’s been a fascination, too. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries well over one hundred important paintings were created by European artists, illustrating the famous biblical tale of Lot.

  With the site carefully charted, Politis’ team removed the topsoil and began the excavations. The first area to be tackled was a sizeable reservoir and elaborate water catchment system. The reservoir itself, which was surrounded by seven-metre walls, was once covered by stone arches and palm trunks – some of which were, remarkably, still in situ.

  The discovery of the reservoir answered few of Politis’ questions. Indeed, it raised further questions, and he became more baffled. Why should a large and sophisticated water system of this type have been built on such an abrupt hillside?

  Seeking answers, Politis dug deeper.

  Ancient ash deposits – when analysed – revealed the remains of creatures as diverse as fallow deer, goats and parrot-fish. This rich diet suggested that the community was anything but impoverished.

  Other finds included dozens of oil lamps, drinking cups, marble bowls, inscribed stone jars, coins and glass vessels. But, the further the excavations went, the more bewildered Politis became.

  ‘You can’t imagine how we felt!’ he exclaims, thinking back, ‘I was tormented by the riddle. Why was there so much in a place so utterly barren? Then we unearthed a superb stone block inscribed in Greek invoking Saint Lot to bless Sozomenou. This was thrilling – it was the first decisive piece of evidence linking Lot’s association with Deir Ain Abata.’

  Looking back at the initial excavations, Politis is astonished at how unassuming he and other archaeologists had been.

  ‘Eventually, working in the tremendous heat, hundreds of feet below sea level, we came across a large triple-apsed basilical church,’ he says. ‘The entire structure had been buried. There had been no hint that it was there at all. It was so exciting!’

  But the findings which were to follow shocked Politis and his team far more than the discovery of the monastery itself.

  ‘On one September evening we went back to our camp house,’ remembers Politis remembers, ‘and that night I had a strange dream. I know it sounds crazy, but I dreamt that the next day we would unearth a cave, perhaps the cave to which Lot and his daughters had fled?’

  ‘The next day, we were startled by one of the workmen’s cries. He had broken through the east end of the north aisle of the basilica, into a natural cave. Could this have been the holy grotto which the church was built to venerate? Then we found a stone inscribed in Greek which seemed to answer the puzzle. It called on Saint Lot to bless the builder of the church!’

  Work continued at fever pitch.

  The atmosphere was electric as the floors of the church were cleared – revealing their beauty for the first time in centuries. The first great mosaic, which lead to the cave itself, was decorated with a geometric design of stepped squares and diamonds. At the east end, in front of the entrance to the cave, was an inscription: also in Greek, naming Bishop Jacob as the Abbot of the monastery. It was dated 606 AD.

  ‘Compared to the other mosaic floors at Deir Ain Abata, says Steffie Chlouverakis, the site’s resident mosaic expert, ‘the one outside the cave might seem uninteresting and ordinary: but for me it’s by far the most extraordinary of all. Notice how the mosaic cubes themselves are perfectly uniform, and how the geometric lines run straight for many metres. This floor was laid by a master of his craft.’

  In the chancel of the church another fabulous mosaic was unearthed. Adorned with vines, the frieze depicts a variety of animals, created with the fine pastel shades that are exemplary of the site. Many birds, a lamb, and a peacock, seemed to sleep for a thousand years or more at their vantage point gazing out across to the Promised Land.

  Yet there was another mosaic floor – located in the nave of the church – which interested Politis the most.

  ‘Its long Greek inscription,’ he says, ‘mentions several church and administrative officials by name, and describes the site as a Holy Place and the church as a Basilica. The mosaic text indicates that this was not merely a monastery, but a venerated place to which pilgrims would journey.’

  With work on the mosaic floors progressing well, Politis and his team turned their attentions to the cave itself.

  ‘The discovery of the cave made all those weeks of scratching about the surface worthwhile,’ he laughs, ‘I know people were beginning to think I was crazy – who knows, maybe I am crazy! Years spent on a mountainside like this in the tremendous heat and you need something to keep you going. First we found a few fine mosaic cubes, then the reservoir, then the church itself, and now the cave.’

  The entrance to the cave, which had no door, was sided by plaster capitals – decorated with Maltese crosses and painted red. The lintel above the door was also adorned with a cross. To the right of the entrance Politis noticed several lines of graffiti etched into the plaster. The two main portions of graffiti are written in Greek and in Kufic Arabic.

  ‘Inside the cave,’ says Politis, ‘we came across a lot of ceramic oil lamps. Initial excavations inside revealed a series of steps leading into a very small room paved with fine marble slabs. This natural cave, it seems certain, was chosen by the Byzantine Christians to represent the place to which Lot and his daughters sought refuge.

  ‘But we were still dogged by questions. Why did the Byzantines decide to venerate this cave in particular? Was there any evidence that this Biblical story actually took place there?’

  Politis was well aware that biblical episodes were often not recorded in writing until centuries after they had happened. This word-ofmouth passing on of tales must have distorted the facts. Yet Politis and his team felt confident that they might strike more valuable clues by excavating the cave itself.

  Meticulous digging followed in the constricted space of the cave. Every few inches of removed soil, revealed more intriguing and older artefacts. First, a number of early Byzantine ceramic and glass oil lamps were found. The team dug deeper. They came upon early Roman pottery. Still they quarried deeper, and unearthed disarticulated human bones and pottery shards dating back to the Middle Bronze Age II (1750 – 1550 BC). These Middle Bronze Age relics fitted in historically with the thirty or so cairn tombs – which Politis had discovered dotted around the hillside. The evidence suggested that, during the Middle Bronze Age, a substantial community had occupied the area. Some scholars believe that this was the time of Genesis.

  Inspired by the Middle Bronze Age finds, Politis excavated still deeper. As if peeling off layers of an onion, he came upon more wonders. Further down the team unearthed a quantity of Early Bronze Age I-II (3150 – 2850 BC) pottery and human bones. And, the most remarkable find at this level, was a complete Early Bronze Age jug with a dipper and drinking cups. Still deeper excavations – at a depth of three metres – revealed the earliest human occupation of the cave, dating back to Late Neolithic times – over eight thousand years ago.

  The excavators discovered a number of freshwater mollusc shells inside the cave itself, perhaps suggesting that the cavern was at one time a spring source. The spring at the base of the mountain – which still contains several varieties of freshwater fish, molluscs and crabs – has survived since before the Dead Sea was ‘dead’. The spring has been cleaned and been cleared of modern debris by the excavation team, who plan to turn it into a model aquatic park.

  After the discovery of the cave, excavations advanced on other areas of the site. It was only then that the full extent of the monastic complex of Sain
t Lot became fully understood.

  ‘We unearthed a refectory with long benches and a large stone oven,’ reflects Politis, ‘north of the basilica church. Then, further north still, we identified a pilgrim’s hostel: inscribed with the name of its builder – Ioannis Prokopios.

  ‘Deir Ain Abata seemed to be revealing one marvel after the next. We could never have hoped to find more areas of consequence. But, at that moment, we came across something of tremendous interest!’

  The skeletons of well over forty individuals, mostly those of adult males, were unearthed. The remains – presumably those of monks – were found beneath the refectory floor in a communal burial chamber, constructed from a disused water reservoir. As the skeletons were exhumed and studied, it became apparent that one of them was that of an African, and at least one other was a woman.

  ‘Then,’ continues Politis, ‘we unearthed five cist burials cut deep into the bedrock. They contained three young children, a foetus, and a newborn. If all these were buried before 606 AD of the monastery, their deaths may have been related to the Great Plague which ravaged the Mediterranean world from 541 to 570 AD.

  Politis hopes that the site may in time become a model area of focus for visitors to Jordan.

  ‘Deir Ain Abata has an ancient tale to tell,’ he says, ‘it has exquisite mosaic scenes, a heritage which stretches back ten millennia and, it has one of the finest views westward to Jericho.’

  But what of future discoveries on the mysterious hillside overlooking The Sea of Lot?

  ‘Well,’ says Politis thoughtfully, Deir Ain Abata has revealed so many wonders to us. She has shown us her reservoir, her basilica church with its glorious mosaic floors, the cave – packed with its own artefacts, and the tombs. What could be next? I don’t dare tempt fate, but finding the library of rare scrolls would be the icing on the cake!’

  SIXTY

  To Tibet