Far-Flung Postcards is a weekly sequence wherein NPR’s worldwide group shares moments from their lives and work world wide.
Greater than 1,500 years in the past, an historic Arab folks constructed a Christian church within the Negev desert. Earlier this month, I acquired to see what stays of it after I was invited to hitch a small group of archaeologists who had been doing pre-dawn excavations close by.
You may know of the Nabataean civilization from its fabulous metropolis hewn from sandstone in Petra, Jordan. An Indiana Jones film was partly filmed there. The traditional Nabataeans had been additionally formidable merchants, trekking the deserts of the Arabian and Sinai peninsulas to ship, amongst different items, fragrant frankincense prized for its use in spiritual ceremonies. To assist their lengthy voyages, they constructed caravanserais, cities and church buildings like this one alongside their routes.
The remainder of this long-abandoned oasis metropolis, known as Mamshit, has crumbled to its foundations, and the Nabataeans lengthy since vanished as a definite folks.
So I used to be stunned at how intact the baptismal swimming pools had been, regardless of the punishing warmth and sand of the Negev. The smaller pool was for baptizing infants, the archaeologists defined; the bigger, cross-shaped pool for baptizing adults — chatting with the transition to Christianity the Nabataeans made, beginning within the 4th century A.D.
Regardless of the early-morning solar beating down on my head, I paused for a second subsequent to the swimming pools. To me, they spoke to the fixed change folks and societies undergo. And in a land traversed by many individuals over millennia, it was a reminder that whereas issues final a very long time, they don’t final without end.
See extra photographs from world wide:
- Greetings from the Dubai airport, the place an extended layover may also be a vacation spot
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- Greetings from Gujarat, India, the place a banyan tree is a spot for relaxation, prayers and play
- Greetings from Khartoum, Sudan, the place these with the least provide their company probably the most
- Greetings from Moscow, Russia, the place Lenin’s tomb attracts a brand new surge of holiday makers
- Greetings from New Delhi, India, the place performing monkeys spark delight — and ambivalence
- Greetings from Damascus, Syria, the place a crowded bar welcomed post-Assad revelers
- Greetings from Alishan, Taiwan, whose crimson cypress forests provide timeless magnificence
- Greetings from Odesa, Ukraine, the place a Black Sea seashore affords respite from warfare
- Greetings from Shenyang, China, the place employees kind AI information in ‘Severance’-like methods
- Greetings from Palmyra, Syria, with its once-grand resort named for a warrior queen
- Greetings from Mexico Metropolis, the place these canines trip a bus to and from college
- Greetings from the Galápagos Islands, the place the blue-footed booby reveals its colours
- Greetings from Afrin, Syria, the place Kurds danced their hearts out to have a good time spring
- Greetings from Dharamshala, India, the place these Tibetan children had been having the perfect time
