One of the best things about bringing Oberlin students to Jordan is that they are super smart, extremely musical and extremely eager to learn. Mohit Dubey, an Oberlin dual-degree student earning separate bachelor's degrees in both physics and guitar performance, exemplifies this combination of intelligence and musicality that make Oberlin a special place. After visiting the Jordan Museum today, he wrote a fantastic blog post for our musical odyssey in Jordan. It's long, but so good that I was compelled to put all of it here. 

Mohit Dubey playing his ocarina at the Roman Citadel in Amman

Outside the Jordanian Archaeological Museum

You will not find the words “Jew”, “Christian”, or “Muslim” written once on the walls of the Jordanian Museum. You will find many things there: original stones inscribed with Bedouin writings from before Christ (which I almost accidentally stepped on); you will find the first time humans tried to depict themselves (a single millimeter of painted seashell bits that depicts the sonic use of a rams horn in worship (see Figure 1); and you will find the entirety of the only original of the Dead Sea Scrolls inscribed on copper.

When I entered the museum, I expected nothing more than a brief tour of the three Semitic religions that all sprung up around the river Jordan: first came Moses, then Jesus, then Muhammad, and now here we are. But I was surprised to find a museum far more interested in the political, cultural and social forces fueling these religious movements, and almost sublimating them in complexity. In this brief article, I hope to share with you a few of the things I learned strolling through this museum for two and a half hours, culminating in a delicious shwarma sandwich up the road at Circle Three.

Let’s begin at the beginning. Something powerful happened around 8,000 years ago when the species of animals known as homo sapiens emerged from an Ice Age. Still, times were too hard to stay in one place, so people became semi-nomadic and continued to practice polytheistic rituals to ensure their agrarian lifestyle could be successful.

Figure 1 – Cave paintings in Jordan from 6000 B.C. of  an early religious ceremony

A lot happened here, but we know very little due to the lack of written language. What we do know, we know from surviving nomadic peoples in Jordan, known as Bedouins. These tribes, formed by intermarriage of cousins to form a strong continuous bloodline (as was probably common in early civilization), base their livelihood off of one thing and one thing alone: herding goats. And they don’t let one bit go to waste: the milk is yoghurt, curd, and butter, the meat is delicious especially in mansaf (just Google it), the hair is woven into cloth and tents, and the skin is tightened around a wooden frame to form a one-string bowed banjo called the rakaba. These people, who live in the eastern hills during hot desert summers and migrate southwest to avoid the snow in winter, have widespread literacy and longstanding judicial and cultural practices that we use as clues for the people of the Copper Age.

Figure 2 – An example of Canaanite writing

But along came bronze, and with it, a whole new mode of living. Around 3000 B.C. the “world” was rocked by three major things: the invention of the wheel, the invention of the lamp, and the widespread use of bronze (which is really just copper with some extra tin to make it stronger). As a result, society started to shift rapidly from semi-nomadic communities to sedentary civilizations. But this did not happen peacefully. From The Epic of Gilgamesh (2700 B.C.) to the Code of Hammurabi (1758 B.C. from which “an eye for an eye” is derived), people, specifically the Egyptians across the Red Sea from Jordan, started to lay down the law. They also started doing some other crazy things including, but not limited to, building giant pyramids, enslaving other nations (especially in Jordan), and inventing monotheism. The first God, capital G, was actually Amenhotep IV who renamed himself “Akhenaten” when he transcended to the sole deity of Egyptian society-religion. This was a time of oppression for many people, especially in the Levant. Nomadic peoples were forced to supply animal products to the wealthy in Egypt and their languages were suppressed due to the imposition of hieroglyphics, which only the rich could read. This led to the formation of new languages, such as Canaanite (see Figure 2), which looks a lot like Hebrew to me…

Guess what happens next? Just guess…

Another even stronger metal steps forth in 1200 B.C. sparking the start of the Iron Age. And along with it come rapid social changes. The fall of the Egyptians, Cassites, and Hittites and their subsequent retreat from the Levant caused a potent shift towards “city-states” in the remaining Jordanian people (many were taken as slaves). Damascus was founded in 1050 B.C. followed by Ammon (where I am writing from), Moab, and Edom (see Figure 3). These three cities, each occupied by a different family (dating back to the Copper Age), formed what was called the “King’s Highway” which quickly became the most important trade route. Art and culture flourished here, retaining many of the aesthetic practices of the Egyptians but with a new spin. Ammonite (not the material, the people) sculptures had large heads and small bodies, signalling a shift in values, and Gods (plural, yes) wore crowns while humans wore headbands and rulers held lotus flowers. Most sculpted figures were of women and animals, showing a strong cult of fertility goddess worship, especially of Ba’al, who also stood for strength and rainstorms and was represented by a bull (#Gilgamesh). Domestic life involved a shift in the shape of the house: many bedrooms supported large families while open courtyards were used for chores such as weaving on looms and wheels for pottery. Egyptian practices of using scarabs (family seals) to signify wealth as well burials in anthropoid coffins (think King Tut) were kept alongside the rise of larger burial sites known as dolmens. Prosperity led to jealousy, which led to war, which led to peaceful rule by the Assyrians starting in 853 B.C. As a result, all of the languages of the three great cities began to resemble Aramaic, which was the most widely spoken language of this time period. However, with the arrival of the Persians in 539 B.C., Jordan and the King’s Highway became a lot less cool in comparison to the newly routed Silk Road.

Figure 3 - Map of the King’s Highway

No one really cared that much when Alexander the Great showed up in 332 B.C. and grabbed up all of the Levantine states in one fell swoop. But this rocked the “Arab world”. The official language became Greek, Amman became Philadelphia (literally “brotherly love”) and pottery and mosaics flooded the art scene (see Figure 4). Jordan was back in business, for a hot second, until a man named Hannibal came and messed it all up. With the Roman conquest of Persia and the inevitable fall of Greek influence, the people of Jordan were once again as oppressed as in Egyptian times. So, along comes a young gentleman with quite a zealous Judaist philosophy who flips the whole society on its head somehow. No longer is it right to be strong, but it is right to be weak and suffer. Jesus came and went, and his mark would be felt much later with the conversion of Constantine and the rise of the Byzantine Empire, but for now the rebellious Jews of Jordan were being squashed by the Romans. Eventually it will all fall to another form of monotheism in 636 A.D. when Arabic-speaking Muslims move in. But now we have arrived at my point.

In telling you all I learned at the museum, I never even mentioned the Old Testament. Religion was not the focus here – or was it? I still can’t tell… Do we just make a big deal about religion now because we have somehow divined it from the politics, history and culture that it was intertwined with? What does it mean that the first monotheistic “God” was a thirteen-year-old boy using the idea of monotheism to oppress semi-nomadic tribes in Jordan? How can we so simply filter out religion from the history, culture, language and needs of these ancestors?

What I gained from my visit today was a wonderful history of the people of the land I am standing on, but I am worried that they are all too often placed in senseless boxes that have so little relevance. When Donald Trump says “ban all Muslims”, I think he is easy to support because that is an easy thing to say, to understand and to repeat. But to actually learn the history of a people, to learn about their culture, their background, their God, is a whole lot of work – not something for Americans who are conditioned to watch tv and Netflix all day. I want to write this article in support of the idea that I have enough time in my life to keep trying to understand, to not be settled, to keep asking better and better questions. But, I don’t want people to keep getting hurt because other people are too lazy to listen to them and respect their history. I mean, why else would we have language?

Figure 4 – Map of the Levant after invasion of the Greeks

I will end with a poem from the museum by Arabios (The Arab) that was an epigram inscribed on a tomb in Gadara (just north of Amman) around 355 A.D.:

To you I say passer by,

as you are,

I was,

as I am,

you will be.

Enjoy the life

as you are going to die.

Let’s enjoy life together as travellers, my Oberlin friends, and leave the tv watching for when we need to distract ourselves from the hellfire of finals.