The Dead Sea and the Jordan River

Barbara Kreiger

Description

For centuries travelers have been drawn to the stunning and mysterious Dead Sea and Jordan River, a region which is unlike any other on earth in its religious and historical significance. In this exceptionally engaging and readable book, Barbara Kreiger chronicles the natural and human history of these storied bodies of water, drawing on accounts by travelers, pilgrims, and explorers from ancient times to the present. She conveys the blend of spiritual, touristic, and scientific motivations that have driven exploration and describes the modern exploitation of the lake and the surrounding area through mineral extraction and agriculture. Today, both lake and river are in crisis, and stewardship of these water resources is bound up with political conflicts in the region. The Dead Sea and the Jordan River combines history, literature, travelogue, and natural history in a way that makes it hard to put down.

Part I. This Strange Water
1. Some Early History, Travellers, Myths

Part II. Nineteenth-Century Exploration
2. Three Sailors, and a River
3. Along the Briny Strand

Part III. Origins and Evolution
4. The Life of a Lake

Part IV. Further Exploration
5. Gentleman from Siberia
6. A Lake Divided

Part V. The Twenty-First Century
7. The River and Lake in Distress
8. Reclamation, and a Vision of the Future
Afterword

Sujets

• Middle Est
• HISTORY
• Histoire
• Israel
• History of the Middle East
• General officer
• Middle East
• General

Informations

• Publié par: Indiana University Press
• Date de parution: 21 mars 2016
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780253019592
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

THE
DEAD SEA
AND THE JORDAN RIVER
Map of the Dead Sea ( detail ) with its various names, showing the Cities of the Plain in flames. From A Pisgah-sight of Palenstine , by Thomas Fuller, 1650. Eran Laor Cartographic Collection, the National Library of Israel, Jerusalem.
THE
DEAD SEA
AND THE JORDAN RIVER
BARBARA KREIGER
This book is a publication of
Indiana University Press
Office of Scholarly Publishing
Herman B Wells Library 350
1320 East 10th Street
Bloomington, Indiana 47405 USA
iupress.indiana.edu
Copyright 1988, 1997, 2016 by Barbara Kreiger
Portions of this book were originally published in 1988 as Living Waters: Myth, History, and Politics of the Dead Sea by The Continuum Publishing Company, New York and in 1997 as The Dead Sea: Myth, History, and Politics by University Press of New England, Hanover, NH
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The Association of American University Presses Resolution on Permissions constitutes the only exception to this prohibition.
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z 39.48-1992.
Manufactured in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Kreiger, Barbara, author.
Title: The Dead Sea and the Jordan River / Barbara Kreiger.
Description: Bloomington ; Indianapolis : Indiana University Press, [2016] |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2015038819 |
ISBN 9780253019363 (cl : alk. paper) |
ISBN 9780253019523 (pb : alk. paper) |
ISBN 9780253019592 (eb)
Subjects: LCSH : Dead Sea (Israel and Jordan)-History. | Jordan
River-History.
Classification: LCC DS 110. D 38 K 725 2016 |
DDC 956.94-dc23 LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015038819
1 2 3 4 5 21 20 19 18 17 16
FOR MY SONS ,
Saul Lelchuk and Daniel Lelchuk
FOR MY BROTHER ,
Michael N. Kreiger, and in his memory
IN MEMORY OF MY FATHER ,
Samuel Kreiger
IN MEMORY OF MY NEPHEW ,
Adam Marc Kreiger
CONTENTS

Preface

Acknowledgments

A Note on Usage
PART ONE
This Strange Water
1
Some Early History, Travelers, and Myths
PART TWO
Nineteenth-Century Exploration
2
Three Sailors and a River
3
Along the Briny Strand
PART THREE
Origins and Evolution
4
The Life of a Lake
PART FOUR
Further Exploration
5
A Gentleman from Siberia
6
A Lake Divided
PART FIVE
The Twenty-First Century
7
The River and Lake in Distress
8
Reclamation and a Vision of the Future

Sources and Notes

Index
PREFACE
More than two decades have passed since I first wrote parts of this book. It seems contradictory to say at the same time that nothing has changed and much has changed, and yet that paradox is an accurate reflection of the environmental and political developments that determine the condition of the Jordan River and the Dead Sea. We despair at lack of movement, then recharge ourselves hopefully when events signal progress, understanding it is the latter outlook that propels activists and residents in their pursuit of environmental cooperation and justice.
Few bodies of water can lay claim to geographical and chemical uniqueness and few can be said to have provoked curiosity and even passion in travelers, geographers, and scientists, not for mere centuries but for millennia. The Dead Sea is such a place. One finds descriptions of its peculiar properties in the works of ancient writers; one hears it reviled in the accounts of medieval pilgrims; and one sees it enthusiastically studied by early and modern explorers.
What is the attraction of this salty reservoir? What secrets does it hold that two centuries of serious investigation have been required to fathom them? This book, in part, traces the course of Dead Sea and Jordan River exploration. That course has not been routine, for the environment is forbidding, the Jordan River a riddle, and the Dead Sea often misrepresented. The region had been subjected for many centuries to hyperbolic pronouncements, and the first serious investigators were confronted with tales that were at times more impediment than tool. Yet explorers of the Dead Sea and Jordan River have contributed important if only partially told chapters in the history of the Holy Land. It would be difficult to exaggerate the wealth of information contained in their accounts. And for all their erudition, these narratives are highly readable and often beautifully written records of deeply felt experience.
The Dead Sea is not merely the lowest place on the face of the earth: at 1400 feet below sea level it is the lowest by far. The second lowest is variously given as Lake Assal in Djibouti or the Turfan Depression in China, both at approximately 500 feet below sea level. The lowest place in the western hemisphere is Death Valley, in California, at minus 280 feet, or one-fifth the depth of the Dead Sea. The question regularly asked is how the Dead Sea got to be that way, and I try to make some sense of the stones and strata in order to piece together that strange geological tale. The readjustment of one s inner clock to accommodate a time span of millions of years results in a new way of looking at the lake and its environs. Rocks are no longer mere rocks but details of something akin to facial features; the Dead Sea comes to life, and one sees why early travelers were prone to personifying it. There is something decidedly human about the shores of the Dead Sea and the banks of the Jordan River, whose stories are inseparable, perhaps because such an important part of our early collective life was played out there. Beyond that, the uniqueness, beauty, and fragility of this environment charge us with the responsibility of defining our relationship with the natural world.
That relationship has far-reaching implications, for it happens that the fate of the Dead Sea and Jordan River is inextricably bound up with the daily lives of those who share it. Monumental demands have been placed on these waters to give, produce, and contribute, and those demands have had environmental and political costs, as we will see. Nevertheless, there have long been voices-Israeli, Jordanian, and Palestinian-that staunchly maintain the Dead Sea might serve as an instrument of peace. That view has generally been seen as improbable, and perhaps it is, given that as far back as ancient days the lake s resources have been frequently contested. But to deny the possibility is to give in all too readily to the obvious, and if there is one thing we can say about the story of the Dead Sea and Jordan River, it is that it is anything but predictable.
When you stand on one bank of the Jordan River, you could fairly leap across to the other. And when you gaze out at the Dead Sea, you can t distinguish Arab waves from Jewish ones as they heedlessly wash over the fluid international boundary that even a map cannot depict persuasively. The other side is less than ten miles away, and as you look across you cannot help but think that the notion of peaceful cooperation is sensible. Reason suggests that it is not harmony that is inapt, but discord; not affinity, but aggression. It would be a fitting chapter in the valley s history for the river and lake to bring people together. Cooperation between neighbors? Stranger things have happened on these shores.

For a number of years, while a state of war existed between Israel and Jordan, I hiked in the wadis along the western side of the Dead Sea guided by an increasingly tattered topographical map. Drawn to a scale of 1:100,000, it was detailed enough to convey a tactile sense of the landscape, yet not so specific as to lose a novice in a wilderness of elevation markings. The cream-colored shore was smudged with cinnamon where the mountains rose to the west and east, and the wadis were sketched in as perforated lines. Dominating the map was the Dead Sea itself: long and narrow, watercolor blue. What struck me the most, however, was the decorative lavender line that gracefully unfurled down the lake s presumed center, curving with the authority of trigonometric accuracy, but suggesting an eye more tuned to aesthetics. Maybe the surveyor s level had been an instrument influenced by hope, or the line had been an expression of some unabashed cartographer s disdain for the unnatural sundering of this landscape. For if the aim was to intimidate with that lavender stroke of the brush, the order was in vain; duty was less demanding than the refusal to participate in the Dead Sea s vivisection.
Whoever this unknown cartographer was, others shared this view, and finally in 1994, with the Israel-Jordan Peace Accord, diplomacy started to catch up to the natural world s vision of unity. Yes, the Dead Sea was still divided in two, and one day, many hope, it will be divided in three. But suddenly, in those buoyant years, the division was self-defining rather than xenophobic. Finally, that lavender line was consistent with the international relationship it was always supposed to reflect. Indeed, one was able to say something very different about it: that here, at this border, two nations were not divided, but brought together.
After the signing of the Peace