By: Ammar Khammash
28-8-2002 |
Ma’an
an oasis of walled gardens
Or
gardens in the shade |
Ma’an is one or two-day destination, can be combined with Shobak,
Petra or Wadi Rum. The straight-line drive on the Desert Highway is
relaxing Ma’an town has a clearly signed exit a bit after 200 km from
Amman. A photogenic destination for those looking for intense Arabian
flavor. The Bedouin market in the southeastern end of the town is the
best place in Jordan to buy your 20-meter-long goat hair tent.
Today, very little of the traditional town of Ma’an has survived. Only
about 30 years ago almost the complete town was of mud brick.
Architecturally, Ma’an represents the end of the mountainous
Mediterranean construction, which uses rubble or dressed stone, and
the beginning of the desert architecture that uses sun-dried mud
brick. The town’s location at the end of Bilad Al-Sham and the
beginning of Hijaz was literally translated in the physical layout of
its two parts: the Shami Ma’an to the north and the Hijazi Ma’an to
the south. Each part has a population that also, to some degree,
reflected this division. |
While each of the two Ma’an had its own garden in the past, only the
gardens of the north have retained some of their original character.
The southern gardens were almost completely demolished by a mighty
flood after torrential rain in 1966. The gardens, as well as the town,
are blessed by all the hydrology characteristics of an oasis; where
the underground water naturally emerges on the surface or gets very
close so that trees can reach it with their roots. In the gardens of
Ma’an the water table is high enough to allow the irrigation of
vegetables from shallow wells. Such wells were dug and lined-up with
circular stone walls to retain the gardens’ earth from collapsing in.
water was pumped up the few meters using a tree trunk mantled to the
side of the well like a seesaw with a heavy stone on the short arm and
a water bucket on the longer arm that extends into the well.
All of the gardens were walled. High walls created amazing alleys some
as narrow as to allow only on person to pass, and were almost
completely closed form the top by the thick branches of pomegranate,
plums, and their hanging fruits. One narrow passage is keeping solid
shade, which is on the brink of complete darkness, something that is a
rarity in the desert blaze of Ma’an. Trees of these gardens are an
important for being adapted for centuries to this climate. They are
living history, shedding light on the farming of desert oasis during
the ottoman period and on the variety of fruits that were sold in the
markets of Ma’an as often |
mentioned by of travelers and pilgrims.
With their intricately woven walls, these gardens crate a fabric of
small plots and a web of passages. Some of the farms are so small – 5m
x 5m – and with the high parameter walls they appear like a room, an
indoor space full of shady trees and privacy. Adding the privacy is
the way Ma’anis made the doors of their gardens. Traditionally, doors
were only large enough for one person; bending or almost crawling in.
such doors would have few stones protruding out of the wall to provide
steps from the outside up to the door which often was elevated, on the
inside, a ladder would be used to descend into the cool earth floor of
the garden. For a non-Ma’ani these doors would have definitely been
misinterpreted as closed windows.
Other than walls the gardens have some bridges that spanned water
creeks, some water channels and, most interestingly, some houses. To
avoid occupying a large area in such small gardens, houses were often
built in the form of towers. Such vertical stacking would result in
the minimal footprint. The result is architecture very reminiscent of
Yemen or south Morocco.
Hardly any of such structures are still standing and, alas, Jordan has
lost a very rare element of its oasis features, an element that was
hardly documented. |
