Jordan Tours Photo Gallery

Jordan Tours - Umm Qais photos

Sitting on a high promontory overlooking Lake Tiberias (The Sea of Galilee), the Golan Heights and the Jordan Valley, Umm Qais is the most dramatically situated of Jordan's Roman era towns. It also is perhaps the most dramatic to look at, as its location in the northwest corner of the kingdom provided both white stone and black basalt as natural building materials. A former member of the Decapolis, its name during the Roman era was Gadara, which means a stronghold. Umm Qais, its more recent name, and the name of the nearby village, is derived from the Arabic word for junction or border station. Both are apt, one for its strategic height and the other for its position on the trade routes, connected to sites everywhere.