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24-615: The oldest trail in Jordan was an ancient trade route that is known today as the " King's Highway ", which spanned from Egypt to Syria passing by Jordan. Moses , Jesus and Muhammad are believed to have walked along what is now the Jordan Trail. The idea of a hiking trail stretching across Jordan was first introduced in the 1990s when Wadi Rum came to be seen as a hot spot for rock climbing . Tony Howard and Di taylor had completed their guidebooks to Wadi Rum and Jordan and realised

48-660: A Christian Roman soldier said to have been martyred in Resafa during the Diocletianic Persecution . A church was built to mark his grave, and the city was renamed Sergiopolis . Indeed, it became, after Jerusalem, "most important pilgrimage center in Byzantine Orientis in [the] proto-Byzantine period", with a special appeal to the local Arabs, especially the Ghassanids . By the late 6th century,

72-630: A church with three apses. Resafa corresponds to the Akkadian Raṣappa and the Biblical Rezeph ( Septuagint ; Koinē Greek : Ράφες ), where it is mentioned in Isaiah 37:12 ; cuneiform sources give Rasaappa, Rasappa, and Rasapi. Ptolemy calls it Rhesapha ( Koinē Greek : Ρεσαφα ). In the late Roman Tabula Peutingeriana , it is called Risapa . In the Notitia dignitatum , it

96-749: A highly scenic if curvy and rather low-speed road. The Highway began in Heliopolis, Egypt and then went eastward to Clysma (modern Suez ), through the Mitla Pass and the Egyptian forts of Nekhl and Themed in the Sinai desert to Eilat and Aqaba . From there the Highway turned northward through the Arabah , past Petra and Ma'an to Udhruh , Sela , and Shaubak . It passed through Kerak and

120-674: Is Rosafa . Procopius write that it was called Sergiopolis after the Saint Sergius . The site dates to the 9th century BC, when a military camp was built by the Assyrians . During Roman times, it was a desert outpost fortified to defend against the Sasanian Empire and a station on the Strata Diocletiana . It flourished as its location on the caravan routes linking Aleppo , Dura-Europos , and Palmyra

144-604: The qasr  or desert castle category. The city was finally abandoned in the 13th century when the Mongols invaded the area. In the Syrian Civil War , the town was occupied by ISIS, before being liberated by Government forces on 19 June 2017 during the Southern Raqqa Offensive . Sergiopolis's first bishop was appointed shortly after 431 by John of Antioch , in spite of the opposition of

168-800: The Bible . Another road connected it with Jerusalem passing by Livias and the traditional site of Jesus ' baptism by John the Baptist on the Jordan River near, known today in Arabic as al-Maghtas , and on via Jericho . During Muslim rule from the 7th century, the road was the main Hajj route from Syria to Mecca , until the Ottoman Turks built the Tariq al-Bint in the 16th century. During

192-643: The Crusader period, use of the road was problematic. The road passed through the province of Oultrejordain of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem . During periods of truce, the Hajj caravans were usually left unharmed by the Crusader lords of Oultrejourdain; however, Raynald of Châtillon attacked and plundered the pilgrims twice. His deeds eventually led to his own death at the hands of Saladin , and to

216-626: The Euphrates River . After the Muslim conquest of the Fertile Crescent in the 7th century AD and until the 16th century, it was the darb al-hajj or pilgrimage road for Muslims from Syria , Iraq , and beyond heading to the holy city of Mecca . In modern Jordan , Highway 35 and Highway 15 follow this route, connecting Irbid in the north with Aqaba in the south. The southern part crosses several deep wadis , making it

240-862: The Ghassanids' tribal Arab ally the Bahra' were tasked with guarding Resafa and its shrine from nomadic marauders and the Lakhmids of Mesopotamia . The city was lost by the Byzantines in the 7th century when the Arabs won the final victory at the Battle of Yarmouk in the year 636. In the eighth century, the Umayyad caliph Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik (r. 724–743) made the city his favoured residence, and built several palaces around it, which are counted among

264-755: The Israelites against the kingdoms of the trans-Jordanian highlands during the period of the Kingdom of Israel (and its sister-kingdom, the Kingdom of Judah ) were probably fought, at least in part, over control of the Highway. Resafa Resafa ( Arabic : الرصافة , romanized :  Reṣafa ), sometimes spelled Rusafa , and known in the Byzantine era as Sergiopolis ( Greek : Σεργιούπολις or Σεργιόπολις , lit.   ' city of Saint Sergius ' ) and briefly as Anastasiopolis ( Αναστασιόπολις , lit.   ' city of Anastasius ' ),

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288-469: The Metropolitan of Hierapolis Bambyce , on whom that church had till then depended. Later, Marianus attended a Council of Antioch . Sergiopolis obtained the title of metropolis from Emperor Anastasius I . With five suffragan sees, it figures in the Notitia episcopatuum of Antioch in the sixth century. A bishop named Sergius or George was an envoy of Justinian to the Lakhmids around 524. At

312-656: The fall of the Crusader kingdom in 1187 in the Battle of Hattin . With his knowledge of ancient history, it was this route that T. E. Lawrence took (160 miles in 49 hours) to Cairo to inform British Intelligence of the Arab victory at Aqaba in July 1917. The King's Highway ( Derech HaMelech ) is referred to in the Book of Numbers ( Numbers 20:17 , 21:22 ), where it is told that the Israelites in their Exodus journey needed to use

336-508: The fifth general council ( Second Council of Constantinople ) in 553, Abraham signed as metropolitan. The favors of Anastasius obtained for the city the name of Anastasiopolis, which it still retained at the beginning of the seventh century. Bishop Candidus, at the time of the Sassanian Persian siege of the city by Khosrau I (in 543), ransomed 1,200 captives for two hundred pounds of gold, and, in 1093, Metropolitan Simeon restored

360-462: The great Basilica ("Échos d'Orient", III, 238); which attests to the continuing existence of Christianity in Rasafa. The (arch)diocese of Sergiopolis was nominally restored as a Roman Catholic titular bishopric , initially of the lowest (episcopal) rank, and under the curiate name Sergiopolis antea Resapha (having namesakes see Sergiopolis), and had the following incumbents as such: In 1925, it

384-488: The land of Moab to Madaba , Rabbah Ammon/Philadelphia (modern Amman ), Gerasa , Bosra , Damascus , and Tadmor , ending at Resafa on the upper Euphrates. Numerous ancient states, including Edom , Moab , Ammon , and various Aramaean polities depended largely on the King's Highway for trade. The Nabataeans used the road as a trade route for luxury goods such as frankincense and spices from southern Arabia . It

408-660: The possibility of a country length trail. The idea only received momentum and funding when the Jordan Trail Association was established in 2015. Volunteers and donors from the private sector contributed to the development of Jordan's first national hiking trail. Queen Rania joined a group of travel bloggers in 2017 for a short hike. The trail has been described as the " Inca Trail of the Middle East" by numerous travel agencies. The trail will be beneficial to Jordan's tourism sector as it begins to recover from

432-504: The road. They had left from Kadesh and requested right of way from the King of Edom but were refused passage. He vowed he would attack them if they used the road. They even offered to pay for any water their cattle drank. Still the King of Edom refused them passage and advanced against them with a large and heavily armed force. After making a detour and coming to the Transjordan area between River Arnon and River Jabbok , they made

456-403: The same request to Amorite King Sihon . For the second time, on the same road, they were denied passage and King Sihon engaged them in battle at Jahaz, where they won that battle "by the edge of the sword". As a result, they gained control in that land and to the north of it. The tribes of Manasseh (eastern half), Gad , and Reuben subsequently settled those territories. Many of the wars of

480-544: The slump it witnessed due to regional turmoil in the early 2010s from the Arab Spring . The trail stretches from Umm Qais in northern Jordan to the coastal city of Aqaba in its south. The trail passes through 52 villages and towns, but the trail has been dissected to 35 sections. The entire length of the trail takes around 40 days to complete. The trail received extensive media coverage after its inception, and has been named as among 2018's best tourist destinations in

504-615: The world to visit by National Geographic , the British Sunday Times , the Guardian , Condenast , Vogue US and Lonely Planet . King%27s Highway (ancient) The King's Highway was a trade route of vital importance in the ancient Near East , connecting Africa with Mesopotamia . It ran from Egypt across the Sinai Peninsula to Aqaba , then turned northward across Transjordan , to Damascus and

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528-573: Was a city located in the Roman province of Euphratensis , in modern-day Syria . It is an archaeological site situated southwest of the city of Raqqa and the Euphrates . Procopius describes at length the ramparts and buildings erected there by Justinian . The walls of Resafa, which are still well preserved, are over 1600 feet in length and about 1000 feet in width; round or square towers were erected about every hundred feet; there are also ruins of

552-473: Was ideal. Resafa had no spring or running water, so it depended on large cisterns to capture the winter and spring rains. Resafa was located in the area of the Roman–Persian Wars , and was therefore a well-defended city that had massive walls that surrounded it without a break. It also had a fortress. In the 4th century, it became a pilgrimage town for Christians coming to venerate Saint Sergius ,

576-520: Was possibly the cause of their war with Hasmonean Alexander Jannaeus and with Iturea in the beginning of the 1st century BC. During the Roman period the road was called Via Regia . Emperor Trajan rebuilt and renamed it Via Traiana Nova , under which name it served as a military and trade road along the fortified Limes Arabicus . In the Byzantine period , the road was an important pilgrimage route for Christians , as it passed next to Mount Nebo , Moses ' death and burial site according to

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